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SO GILBERT FIRST MET THE QUEEN” 


66 


VIA CRUCIS 


A Romance of the Second Crugade 


BY 


F. MARION CRAWFORD . 


AUTHOR OF “ SARACINESCA,” ‘AVE ROMA IMMORTALIS,” 
‘6 CORLEONE,”’ ETC., ETC, 


ILLUSTRATED BY LOUIS LOEB 


NEW YORK 
GROSSET & DUNLAP 
| PUBLISHERS 


Coryricut, 1898, 
By F. MARION CRAWFORD. 


Copryrigut, 1899, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 





Reprinted October, 


Set up and electrotyped September, 1899. 
January twice, 1900. 


November twice, December three times, 1890: 
February, March, May, September, October, 1g00. Special edition, 


June, 1901; July, 1901 ; June, November, rgo2, 
Special edition March, 19043 March, 1905. 


One Hundred and Twenty-third Thousand 


Norwood WPress 
4. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 


’ 


\ 
i 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


g “So Gilbert first met the Queen” 


“ Perhaps that is one reason why I like you’”’. 


“Crosses! Give us Crosses!” . 


— Beatrix and Gilbert 


) The Knighting of Gilbert . . . . 
owe For a space Gilbert answered nothing ” : ‘ 


| 5 The Way of the Cross . ‘ : ‘ Ain rs 





Frontispiece 


FACING PAGH 


82 
140 


202 


- “He... held, while earth and sky whirled with him”  . 234 


286 


360 


394 





VIA CRUCIS 


CHAPTER I 


THE sun was setting on the fifth day of May, in 
the year of our Lord’s grace eleven hundred and 
forty-five. In the little garden between the outer 
wall of the manor and the moat of Stoke Regis 
Manor, a lady slowly walked along the narrow path 
between high rose bushes trained upon the masonry, 
and a low flower-bed, divided into many little squares, 
planted alternately with flowers and sweet herbs on 
one side, and bordered with budding violets on the 
other. From the line where the flowers ended, 
spiked rushes grew in sharp disorder to the edge 
of the deep green water in the moat. Beyond 
the water stretched the close-cropped sward; then 
came great oak trees, shadowy still in their spring 
foliage ; and then, corn-land and meadow-land, in 
long, green waves of rising tilth and pasture, as far 
as a man could see. 

The sun was setting, and the level rays reddened 
the lady’s golden hair, and fired the softness of her 
clear blue eyes. She walked with a certain easy 
undulation, in which there were both strength and 
grace; and though she could barely have been called 
young, none would have dared to say that she was 

B 1 


2 VIA CRUCIS 


past maturity. Features which had been coldly 
perfect and hard in early youth, and which might 
grow sharp in old age, were smoothed and rounded 
in the full fruit-time of life’s summer. As the gold 
deepened in the mellow air, and tinged the lady’s 
hair and eyes, it wrought in her face changes of 
which she knew nothing. The beauty of a white 
marble statue suddenly changed to burnished gold 
might be beauty still, but of different expression and 
meaning. There is always something devilish in 
the too great profusion of precious metal— some- 
thing that suggests greed, spoil, gain, and all that 
he lives for who strives for wealth; and sometimes, 
by the mere absence of gold or silver, there is dig- 
nity, simplicity, even solemnity. 

Above the setting sun, tens of thousands of little 
clouds, as light and fleecy as swan’s-down, some daz- 
zling bright, some rosy-coloured, some, far to east- 
ward, already purple, streamed across the pale sky 
in the mystic figure of a vast wing, as if some great 
archangel hovered below the horizon, pointing one 
jewelled pinion to the firmament, the other down and 
unseen in his low flight. Just above the feathery 
oak trees, behind which the sun had dipped, long 
streamers of red and yellow and more imperial pur- 
ple shot out to right and left. Above the moat’s 
broad water, the quick dark May-flies chased one 
another, in dashes of straight lines, through the rosy 
haze, and as the sinking sun shot a last farewell 
glance between the oak trees on the knoll, the lady 
stood still and turned her smooth features to the 
light. There was curiosity in her look, expectation, 


VIA CRUCIS 8 


and some anxiety, but there was no longing. A 
month had passed since Raymond Warde had ridden 
away with his half-dozen squires and servants to do 
homage to the Empress Maud. Her court was, indeed, 
little more than a show, and Stephen ruled in wrong- 
ful possession of the land; but here and there a sturdy 
and honest knight was still to be found, who might, 
perhaps, be brought to do homage for his lands to 
King Stephen, but who would have felt that he was 
a traitor, and no true man, had he not rendered the 
homage of fealty to the unhappy lady who was his 
rightful sovereign. And one of these was Raymond 
Warde, whose great-grandfather had ridden with 
Robert the Devil to Jerusalem, and had been with him 
when he died in Niczwa; and his grandsire had been 
in the thick of the press at Hastings, with William 
of Normandy, wherefore he had received the lands 
and lordship of Stoke Regis in Hertfordshire; and 
his name is on Battle Abbey Roll to this day. 
During ten years Stephen of Blois had reigned 
over England with varying fortune, alternately vic- 
tor and vanquished, now holding his great enemy, 
Robert of Gloucester, a prisoner and hostage, now 
himself in the Empress’s power, loaded with chains 
and languishing in the keep of Bristol Castle. 
Yet of late the tide had turned in his favour; and 
though Gloucester still kept up the show of warfare 
for his half-sister’s sake, —as indeed he fought for her 
so long as he had breath, — the worst of the civil war 
was over; the partisans of the Empress had lost faith 
in her sovereignty, and her cause was but lingering 
in the shadow of death. ‘The nobles of England had 


4 VIA CRUCIS 


judged Stephen’s character from the hour in which 
King Henry died, and they knew him to be a brave 
soldier, a desperate fighter, an indulgent man, and 
a weak ruler. 

Finding themselves confronted by a usurper who 
had no great talent to recommend him, nor much 
political strength behind his brilliant personal cour- 
age, their first instinct was to refuse submission 
to his authority, and to drive him out as an impos- 
tor. It was not until they had been chilled and dis- 
appointed by the scornful coldness of the Empress 
@ueen’s imperious bearing that they saw how much 
pleasanter it would be to rule Stephen than to serve 
Maud. Yet Gloucester was powerful, and with his 
feudal retainers and devoted followers and a hand- 
ful of loyal independent knights, he was still able 
to hold Oxford, Gloucester, and the northernmost 
part of Berkshire for his sister. 

Now, in the early spring of this present year, the 
great earl had gone forth, with his followers and 
a host of masons and labouring men, to build a new 
castle on the height by Faringdon, where good King 
Alfred had carved the great white horse by tear- 
ing the turf from the gravel hill, for an everlasting 
record of victory. Broadly and boldly Gloucester 
had traced the outer wall and bastions, the second 
wall within that, and the vast fortress which was to 
be thus trebly protected. The building was to be 
the work of weeks, not months, and, if it were pos- 
sible, of days rather than of weeks. The whole 
was to be a strong outpost for a fresh aavance, and 
neither gold nor labour was to be spared in the 


VIA CRUCIS 5 


execution of the plan. Gloucester pitched his sister’s 
camp and his own tent upon the grassy eminence that 
faced the castle. Thence he himself directed and 
commanded, and thence the Empress Maud, sitting 
beneath the lifted awning of her imperial tent, could 
see the grey stones rising, course upon course, string 
upon string, block upon block, ata rate that reminded 
her of that Eastern trick which she had seen at the 
Emperor’s court, performed by a turbaned juggler 
from the East, who made a tree grow from the seed 
to the leafy branch and full ripe fruit while the dazed 
courtiers who looked on could count fivescore. 

Thither, as to a general trysting-place, the few 
loyal knights and barons went up to do homage to 
their sovereign lady, and to grasp the hand of the 
bravest and gentlest man who trod English ground ; 
and thither, with the rest, Raymond Warde was 
gone, with his only son, Gilbert, then but eighteen 
years of age, whom this chronicle chiefly concerns; 
and Raymond’s wife, the Lady Goda, was left in the 
Manor house of Stoke Regis under the guard of a 
dozen men-at-arms, mostly stiff-jointed veterans of 
King Henry’s wars, and under the more effectual 
protection of several hundred sturdy bondsmen and 
yeomen, devoted, body and soul, to their master and 
ready to die for his blood or kin. For throughout 
Hertfordshire and Essex and Kent there dwelt no 
Norman baron nor any earl who was beloved of his 
Saxon people as was the Lord of Stoke; wherefore 
his lady felt herself safe in his absence, though she 
knew well enough that only a small part of that 
devotion was for herself. 


6 VIA CRUCIS 


There are people who seem able to go through life, 
with profit to themselves, if not to others, by a sort 
of vicarious grace arising out of the devotion wasted 
on them by their nearest and dearest, and dependent 
upon the success, the honour, and the reputation of 
those who cherish them. The Lady Goda set down to 
her own full credit the faithful attachment which her 
husband’s Saxon swains not only felt for him, but 
owed him in return for his unchanging kindness and 
impartial justice ; and she took the desert to herself, 
as such people will, with a whole-souled determina- 
tion to believe that it was all her due though she 
knew that she deserved none of it. 

She had married Raymond Warde without loving 
him, being ambitious of his name and honours, when 
his future had seemed brilliant in the days of good 
King Henry. She had borne him an only son, who 
worshipped her with a chivalric devotion that was 
almost childlike in its blindness; but the most that 
she could feel, in return, was a sort of motherly van- 
ity in his outward being; and this he accepted as love, 
though it was as far from that as devotion to self 
is from devotion to another—as greed is far from 
generosity. She had not been more than sixteen 
years of age when she had married, being the young- 
est of many sisters, left almost dowerless when their 
father had departed on a pilgrimage to the Holy 
Land, from which he had never returned. Raymond 
Warde had loved her for her beauty, which was real, 
and for her character, which was entirely the creation 
of his own imagination ; and with the calm, uncon- 
scious fatuity which so often underlies the characters 


VIA CRUCIS v4 


of honest and simple men, he had continued through- 
out his married life to believe that his wife’s affec- 
tion, if neither very deep nor very high, was centred 
upon himself and upon Gilbert. Any mana whit less 
true and straightforward would have found out the 
utter emptiness of such belief within a year. Goda 
had been bitterly disappointed by the result of her 
marriage, so far as her real tastes and ambitions were 
concerned. She had dreamt of a court; she was con- 
demned to the country. She loved gayety; she was 
relegated to dulness. Moreover the Lord of Stoke 
was strong rather than attractive, imposing rather 
than seductive, and he had never dreamed of that 
small coin of flattery which greedy and ‘dissatisfied 
natures require at all costs when their real longings 
are unfed. It is their nature to give little; it is 
their nature and their delight to ask much, and to 
take all that is within their reach. So it came to 
pass that Goda took her husband’s loving generosity 
and her son’s devotion as matters foregone and of 
course, which were her due, and which might stay 
hunger, though they could not satisfy her vanity’s 
large appetite; and she took, besides, such other 
things, both good and bad, as she found in her path, 
especially and notably the heart of Arnold de Cur- 
boil, a widowed knight, cousin to that Archbishop of 
Canterbury who had crowned Stephen king, after 
swearing allegiance to Maud. This Arnold, who 
had followed his great cousin in supporting King 
Stephen’s cause, had received for his service broad 
lands, both farm and forest, in Hertfordshire, border- 
ing upon the hereditary estates of the Wardes; and 


8 VIA CRUCIS 


in the turmoil and chaos of the long civil war, his 
word, at first without Raymond’s knowledge, had 
more than once saved the latter’s little castle from 
siege and probable destruction. Warde, in his loyalty 
to the rightful sovereign, had, indeed, rather drawn 
back from the newcomer’s friendship than made 
advances to win it; but Raymond had yielded in the 
end to his wife’s sarcasms and to his own sense of 
obligation, as he began to find out how, again and 
again, in the turning tides of civil strife, his neigh- 
bour, though of opposite conviction, served him by 
protecting his bondsmen, his neat cattle, and his 
growing crops from piliage and destruction. Ray- 
mond did not trace such acts of neighbourly kind- 
ness to the day when, hawking with his lady and 
little Gilbert, then hardly big enough to sit upon a 
horse, they had been overtaken by a winter storm 
not far from Arnold’s lands, and when Arnold him- 
self, returning from a journey, had bidden them 
take shelter in a small outlying manor house, where 
he was to spend the night, and whither his servants 
had brought his little daughter Beatrix to meet her 
father. Raymond had accepted the offer for his 
wife’s sake, and the two families had made acquaint- 
ance on that evening, by the blazing fire in the 
little hall. 

Before supper, the men had talked together with 
that sort of cheery confidence which exists almost 
before the first meeting between men who are neigh- 
bours and of the same rank, and the Lady Goda had 
put in a word now and then, as she sat in the high- 
backed chair, drying the bright blue cloth skirt of her 


VIA CRUCIS 9 


gown before the crackling logs ; and meanwhile, too, 
young Gilbert, who had his mother’s hair and his 
father’s deep-set eyes, walked round and round the 
solemn little dark-faced girl, who sat upon a settle 
by herself, clad in a green cloth dress which was cut 
in the fashion for grown-up women, and having two 
short stiff plaits of black hair hanging down behind 
the small coverchief that was tied under her fat chin. 
And as the’ boy in his scarlet doublet and green 
cloth hose walked backward and forward, stop- 
ping, moving away, then standing still to show off 
his small hunting-knife, drawing it half out of its 
sheath, and driving it home again with a smart push 
of the palm of his hand, the little girl’s round black 
eyes followed all his movements with silent and grave 
curiosity. She was brotherless, he had no sisters, 
and both had been brought up without companions, 
so that each was an absolute novelty to the other ; 
and when Gilbert threw his round cap, spinning 
on itself, up to the brown rafters of the dim fire-lit 
chamber and caught it upon one finger as it came 
down again, the little Beatrix laughed aloud. This 
seemed to him nothing less than an invitation, and he 
immediately sat down beside her on the settle, holding 
his cap in his hand, and began to ask her how she 
was called, and whether she lived in that place all 
the year round; and before long they were good 
friends, and were talking of plovers’ eggs and king- 
fishers’ nests, and of the time when they should each 
have a hawk of their own, and a horse, and each a 
hound and a footman. 

When supper was over and a serving-woman 


10 VIA CRUCIS 


had taken the little Beatrix away to sleep in the 
women’s upper chamber, and when the steward of 
the manor farm, and his wife and the retainers and 
servants, who had eaten and drunk their fill at the 
lower end of the hall, were all gone to their quarters 
in the outbuildings, — and when a bed had been made 
for Gilbert, in a corner near the great chimney- 
piece, by filling with fresh straw a large linen sack 
which was laid upon the chest in which the bag was — 
kept during the daytime, and was then covered with 
a fine Holland sheet and two thick woollen blankets, 
under which the boy was asleep in five minutes, — 
then the two knights and the lady were left to them- 
selves in their great carved chairs before the fire. 
But the Lord of Stoke, who was a strong man and 
heavy, and had eaten well and had drtnk both ale 
and Gascony wine at supper, stretched out his feet 
to the fire-dogs, and rested his elbows upon the arms 
of his chair, and matched his hands together by 
the thumbs and by the forefingers, and by the other 
fingers, one by one; and little by little the musical, 
false voice of his lady, and the singularly gentle 
and unctuous tones of his host, Arnold de Curboil, 
blended together and lost themselves, just as the 
gates of dreamland scftly closed behind him. 

The Lady Goda, who had been far too tired to 
think of riding home that night, was not in the least 
sleepy, and, moreover, she was profoundly interested 
in what Sir Arnold had to say, while he was much too 
witty to say anything which should not interest her. 
He talked of the court, and of the fashions, and of 
great people whom he knew intimately and whom 


VIA CRUCIS 11 


the Lady Goda longed to know; and from time to 
time he managed to convey to her the idea that the 
beauties of King Stephen’s court would stand in a 
poor comparison with her, if her husband could be 
induced to give up his old-fashioned prejudices and 
his allegiance to the Empress Maud. Lady Goda 
had once been presented to the Enipress, who had 
paid very little attention to her, compared with the 
interest she showed in Sir Raymond himself. At the 
feast which had followed the formal audience, she 
had been placed between a stout German widow lady 
and an Italian abbot from Normandy, who had talked 
to each other across her, in dog-Latin, in a way 
which had seemed to her very unmannerly; and the 
German lady had eaten pieces of game-pie with her 
knife, instead of using her fingers, as a lady should, 
before forks were invented. On the following morn- 
ing the Lady Goda had been taken away again by 
her husband, and her experiences of court life had 
been brought to an abrupt close. Ifthe great Earl 
Robert of Gloucester had deigned to bestow a word 
upon her, instead of looking through her with his 
beautiful calm blue eyes at an imaginary land- 
scape beyond, her impressions of life at the Em- 
press’s court might have been very different, and she 
might ever afterwards have approved her husband’s 
loyalty. But although she had bestowed unusual 
pains upon the arrangement of her splendid golden 
hair, and had boxed the ears of a clumsy tirewoman 
with so much vivacity that her own hand ached per- 
-ceptibly three hours afterwards, yet the great earl 
paid no more attention to her than if she had been 


12 VIA CRUCIS 


a Saxon dairy-maid. These things, combined with 
the fact that she unexpectedly found the ladies of 
the Empress’s court wearing pocket sleeves, shaped 
like overgrown mandolins, and almost dragging on 
the rushes as they walked, whereas her own were of 
the old-fashioned open cut, had filled her soul with 
bitterness against the legitimate heir to King Henry’s 
throne and had made the one-sided barrier between 
herself and her husband—which she could see so 
plainly, but which was quite invisible to him — finally 
and utterly impassable. He not only bored her him- 
self, but he had given her over to be bored by others, 
and from that day no such thing as even the mildest 
affection for him was to be thought of on her side. 

It was no wonder that she listened with breath- 
less interest to all Sir Arnold told her, and watched 
with delight the changing expression of his smooth 
face, contrasted at every point with the bold, grave 
features of the Lord of Stoke, solemnly asleep beside 
her. And Curboil, on his side, was not only flattered, 
as every man is when a beautiful woman listens to 
him long and intently, but he saw also that her 
beauty was of an unusual and very striking kind. 
Too straight, too cold, too much like marble, yet 
with hair almost too golden and a mouth like a 
small red wound; too much of every quality to 
be natural, and yet without fault or flaw, and too 
vivid not to delight the tired taste of the man of 
pleasure of that day, who had seen the world from 
London to Rome and from Rome to the imperial 
court of Henry the Fifth. | 

And she, on her side, saw in him the type to which 


VIA CRUCIS 18 


she would naturally have been attracted had she 
been perfectly free to make her choice of a husband. 
Contrasted with the man of action, of few words, of 
few feelings and strong ones, she saw the many- 
sided man of the world, whose mere versatility was 
a charm, and the thought of whose manifold expe- 
riences had in it a sort of mysterious fascination. 
Arnold de Curboil was above all a man of tact and 
light touch, accustomed to the society of women 
and skilled in the art of appealing to that unsatisfied 
vanity which is the basis of most imperfect feminine 
characters. There was nothing weak about him, 
and he was at least as brave as most men, besides 
being more skilful than the majority in the use of 
weapons. His small, well-shaped, olive-tinted hand 
could drive a sword with a quicker thrust than 
Raymond Warde’s, and with as sure an aim, though 
there might not be the same massive strength 
behind it. In the saddle he had not the terrible 
grip of the knee which could make a strong horse 
shrink and quiver and groan aloud; but few riders 
of his day were more profoundly skilled in the art 
of showing a poor mount to good advantage, and of 
teaching a good one to use his own powers to the 
utmost. When Warde had ridden a horse six 
months, the beast was generally gone in the fore 
quarters, and broken-winded, if not dead outright; 
but in the same time Curboil would have ridden 
the same horse twice as far, and would have doubled 
his value. And so in many other ways, with equal 
chances, the one seemed to squander where the other 
turned everything to his own advantage. Standing. 


14 VIA CRUCIS 


Sir Arnold was scarcely of medium height, but 
seated, he was not noticeably small; and, like many 
men of short stature, he bestowed a constant and 
thoughtful care upon his person and appearance, 
which resulted in a sort of permanent compensation. 
His dark beard was cut to a point, and so carefully 
trimmed as to remind one of those smoothly clipped 
trees representing peacocks and dragons, which have 
been the delight of the Italian gardener ever since 
the days of Pliny. He wore his hair neither long 
nor short, but the silky locks were carefully parted 
in the middle and smoothed back in rich dark waves. 
There was something almost irritating in their 
unnatural smoothness, in the perfect transparency of 
the man’s healthy olive complexion, in the mouse- 
like sleekness of his long arching eyebrows, and in 
the perfect self-satisfaction and confidence of his 
rather insolent reddish-brown eyes. His straight 
round throat, well proportioned, well set upon his 
shoulders, and transparently smooth as his own 
forehead, was thrown into relief by the exquisite 
gold embroidery that edged the shirt of finest 
Flemish linen. He wore a close-fitting tunic of 
fine scarlet cloth, with tight sleeves slightly turned 
back to display his shapely wrists; it was gathered 
to his waist by a splendid sword-belt, made of 
linked and enamelled plates of silver, the work 
of a skilled Byzantine artist, each plate representing 
in rich colours a little scene from the life and passion 
of Christ. The straight cross-hilted sword stood 
ieaning against the wall near the great chimney- 
piece, but the dagger was still at the belt, a marvel 


VIA CRUCIS 15 


of workmanship, a wonder of temper, a triumph of 
Eastern art, when almost all art was Eastern. The 
hilt of solid gold, eight-sided and notched, was cross- 
chiselled in a delicate but deep design, picked out with 
rough gems, set with cunning irregularity ; the guard, 
a hollowed disk of steel, graven and inlaid in gold 
with Kutic characters ; the blade, as long as a man’s 
arm from the elbow to the wrist-joint, forged of 
steel and silver by a smith of Damascus, well 
balanced, slender, with deep blood-channels scored 
on each side to within four fingers of the thrice- 
hardened point, that could prick as delicately as a 
needle or pierce fine mail like a spike driven by a 
sledge-hammer. ‘The tunic fell in folds to the knee, 
and the close-fitted cloth hose were of a rich dark 
brown. Sir Arnold wore short riding-boots of dark 
purple leather, having the tops worked round with a 
fine scarlet lacing ; but the spur-leathers were of the 
same colour as the boot and the spurs themselves of 
steel, small, sharp, unornamented, and workmanlike. 

Six years had passed since that evening, and still, 
when the Lady Goda closed her eyes and thought of 
Sir Arnold, she saw him as she had seen him then, 
with every line of his expression, every detail of his 
dress, sitting beside her in the warm firelight, lean- 
ing forward a little in his chair, and talking to her 
in a tone of voice that was meant to be monotonous 
to the sleeper’s ear, but not by any means to her 
own. Between Warde and Curboil the acquaint- 
ance had matured — had been in a measure forced in 
its growth by circumstances and mutual obligations ; 
but it had never ripened into the confidence of 


16 VIA CRUCIS 


friendship on Warde’s side, while on Sir Arnold’s it 
had been but a well-played comedy to hide his ris- 
ing hatred for the Lady Goda’s husband. And she, 
on her side, played her part as well. An alliance in 
which ambition had held the place of heart could 
not remain an alliance at all when ambition had 
been altogether disappointed. She hated her hus- 
band for having disappointed her; she despised him 
for having made nothing of his many gifts and 
chances, for clinging to an old cause, for being old- 
fashioned, for having seen much and taken nothing 
—which makes ‘rich eyes and poor hands’—for 
being slow, good-natured, kind-hearted, and a prey 
to all who wished to get anything from him. She 
reflected with bitterness that for a matter of seven 
or eight years of waiting, and a turn of chance which 
would have meant happiness instead of misery, she 
might have had the widowed Sir Arnold for a hus- 
band and have been the Archbishop of Canterbury’s 
cousin, high in favour with the winning side in the 
civil war and united to a man who would have 
known how to flatter her cold nature into a fiction 
of feeling, instead of wasting on her the almost 
exaggerated respect with which a noble passion 
envelops its object, but which, to most women, 
becomes in the end unspeakably wearisome. 

Many a time during those six years had she and 
Sir Arnold met and talked as on the first night. 
Once, when the Empress Maud had taken King 
Stephen prisoner, and things looked ill for his fol- 
lowers, Warde had insisted that his neighbour should 
come over to Stoke Regis, as being a safer place 


VIA CRUCIS 17 


than his own castle; and once again, when Stephen 
had the upper hand, and Sir Raymond was fighting 
desperately under Gloucester, his wife had taken 
her son, and the priest, and some of her women, and 
had ridden over to ask protection of Sir Arnold, 
leaving the manor to take care of itself. 

At first Curboil had constantly professed admira- 
tion for Warde’s mental and physical gifts ; but little 
by little, tactfully feeling his distance, he had made 
the lady meet his real intention half way by con- 
fiding to him all that she suffered, or fancied that 
she suffered — which with some women is the same 
thing —in being bound for hfe to a man who had 
failed to give her what her ambition craved. ‘Then, 
one day, the key-word had been spoken. After that, 
they never ceased to hope that Raymond Warde might 
come to an untimely end. 

During these years Gilbert had grown from a boy 
to a man, unsuspicious, worshipping his mother as a 
kind of superior being, but loving his father with 
all that profound instinct of mutual understanding 
which makes both love and hatred terrible within 
the closer degrees of consanguinity. As time went 
by and the little Beatrix grew tall and straight and 
pale, Gilbert loved her quite naturally, as she loved 
him —two young people of one class, without other , 
companions, and very often brought together for 
days at a time in the isolated existence of medieval 
castles. Perhaps Gilbert never realized just how 
much of his affection for his mother was the result 
of her willingness to let him fall in love with Bea- 
trix. But the possibility of discussing the marriage 

C 


18 VIA CRUCIS 


was another excuse for those long conversations with 
Sir Arnold, which had now become a necessary part 
of Goda’s life, and it made the frequent visits and 
meetings in the hawking season seem quite natural 
to the unsuspecting Sir Raymond. In hunting with 
Sir Arnold, he had more than one narrow escape. 
Once, when almost at close quarters with an old 
boar, he was stooping down to meet the tusker with 
a low thrust. His wife and Sir Arnold were some 
twenty paces behind him, and all three had become 
separated from the huntsmen. Seeing the position 
and the solitude, the Lady Goda turned her meaning 
eyes to her companion. An instant later Sir Arnold’s 
boar-spear flew like a cloth-yard arrow, straight at 
Sir Raymond’s back. But in that very instant, too, 
as the boar rushed upon him, Warde sprang to one 
side, and, almost dropping to his knee, ran the wild 
beast through with his hunting sword. The spear 
flew harmless over his head, unseen and unheard, and 
lost itself in the dead leaves twenty yards beyond 
him. On another day, Raymond, riding along, hawk 
on wrist, ten lengths before the others, as was his 
wont, did not notice that they gradually fell behind, 
until he halted in a narrow path of the forest, looked 
round, and found himself alone. He turned his 
horse’s head and rode back a few yards, when sud- 
denly three masked men, whom he took for robbers, 
sprang up in his path and fell upon him with 
long knives. But they had misreckoned their dis- 
tance by a single yard, and their time by one second, 
and when they were near enough to strike, his sword 
was already in his hand. ‘The first man fell dead ; 


VIA CRUCIS 19 


the second turned and fled, with a deep flesh wound 
in his shoulder; the third followed without strik- 
ing a blow; and Sir Raymond rode on unhurt, medi- 
tating upon the uncertainty of the times. When he 
rejoined his wife and friend, he found them dis- 
mounted and sitting side by side on a fallen tree, 
talking low and earnestly, while the footmen and 
falconers were gathered together in a little knot at 
some distance. As they heard his voice, Goda 
started with a little cry, and Arnold’s dark face 
turned white; but by the time he was beside them, 
they were calm again, and smiled, and they asked him 
whether he had lost his way. Raymond said nothing 
of what had happened to him, fearing to-startle the 
delicate nerves of his lady; but late on the follow- 
ing night, when Sir Arnold was alone in his bed- 
chamber, a man ghastly white from loss of blood 
lifted the heavy curtain and told his story in a low 
voice. 


CHAPTER II 


Now Raymond and his son had gone over intc 
Berkshire, to the building of the great castle at 
Faringdon, as has been said; and for a while Sir 
Arnold remained in his hold, and very often he rode 
over alone to Stoke, and spent many hours with 
the Lady Goda, both in the hall and in the small 
garden by the moat. ‘The priest, and the steward, 
and the men-at-arms, and the porter, were all used to 
see him there often enough, when Sir Raymond was 
at home, and they thought no evil because he came 
now to bear the lonely lady company; for the 
manners of those days were simple. 

But on a morning at the end of April, there came 
a messenger from King Stephen, bidding all earls, 
barons, bannerets, and knights, upon their oath of 
fealty, join him with their fighting men in Oxford. 
For form’s sake, the messenger came to Stoke Regis, 
as not admitting that any Norman knight should 
not be on the king’s side; and the drawbridge being 
down, he rode under the gateway, and when the 
trumpeter who was with him had blown three blasts, 
he delivered his message. Then the steward, bow- 
ing deeply, answered that his lord was absent on a 
journey; and the messenger turned and rode away. 
without bite or sup. But, riding on to Stortford 
Castle, he found Sir Arnold, and delivered the king’s 

20 


VIA CRUCIS 21 


bidding with more effect, and was hospitably treated 
with meat and drink. Sir Arnold armed himself 
slowly in full mail, saving his head, for the weather 
was strangely warm, and he would ride in his hat 
rather than wear the heavy steel cap with the broad 
nose-guard. Before an hour had passed he was 
mounted, with his men, and his footmen were march- 
ing before and behind him on the broad Hertford 
road. But he had sent a messenger secretly to the 
Lady Goda, to tell her that he was gone; and after 
that she heard nothing for many days. 

In the morning, and after dinner, and before sun- 
set, she came every day to the little garden under 
the west wall of the manor, and looked long toward 
the road —not that she wished Sir Raymond back, 
nor that she cared when Gilbert came, but she well 
knew that the return of either would mean that the 
fighting was over, and that Sir Arnold, too, would 
be at leisure to go home. 

On that fifth of May, as the sun was going 
down, she stood siill and looked out toward the 
road for the tenth time since Curboil had gone to 
join the king. The sun sank lower, and still she 
saw nothing ; and she felt the chill of the damp even- 
ing air, and would have turned to go in, but some- 
thing held her. Far up the road, on the brow of the 
rising ground, she saw a tiny spark, a little dancing 
flame like the corpse-candles that run along the 
graves on a summer’s night—first one, then all at 
once three, then, as it seemed to her, a score at least, 
swaying a little above a compact dark mass against 
the red sky. The lights were like little stars rising 


22 VIA CRUCIS 


and falling on the horizon, and always just above a 
low, black cloud. A moment more, and the evening 
breeze out of the west brought a long-drawn har- 
mony of chanting to the Lady Goda’s ear, the high 
sweet notes of youthful voices sustained by the 
rich counterpoint of many grown men’s tones. She 
started, and held her breath, shivered a little, and 
snatched at the rose bush beside her, so that the 
thorns struck through the soft green gauntlet and 
pricked her, though she felt nothing. There was 
death in the air; there was death in the moving lights ; 
there was death in the minor wail of the monks’ voices. 
In the first moment of imperfect understanding, it was 
Arnold whom they were bringing home to her, slain in 
battle by her lawful husband, or by Gilbert, her son ; 
it was Arnold whom they were bringing back to her 
who loved him, that she might wash his wounds with 
her tears, and dry his damp brow with her glorious 
hair. Wide-eyed and silent, as the train came near, 
she moved along by the moat to meet the procession 
at the drawbridge, not understanding yet, but not 
letting one movement of the men, one flicker of the 
lights, one quaver of the deep chant, escape her 
reeling senses. ‘Then all at once she was aware that 
Gilbert walked bareheaded before the bier, half 
wrapped in a long black cloak that swept the green- 
sward behind him. As she turned the last bastion 
before reaching the drawbridge, the funeral was 
moving along by the outer edge of the moat, and 
between the procession and her there was-only the 
broad water, reflecting the lights of the moving 
tapers, the dark cowls of the monks, the white sur- 


VIA CRUCIS 23 


plices of the song-boys. They moved slowly, and 
she, as in a dream, followed them on the other side 
with little steps, wondering, fearing, starting now 
with a wild thrill of liberty at last, now strug- 
sling with a half conventional, half hysterical sob that 
rose in her throat at the thought of death so near. 
She had lived with him, she had played the long 
comedy of love with him, she had loathed him in 
her heart, she had smiled at him with well-trained 
eyes; and now she was free to choose, free to love, 
free to be Arnold’s wife. And yet she had lived 
with the dead man; and in the far-off past there were 
little tender lights of happiness, half real, half played, 
but never forgotten, upon which she had once taught 
her thoughts to dwell tenderly and sadly. She had 
loved the dead man in the first days of marriage, as 
well as her cold and unawakened nature could love 
at all—if not for himself, at least for the hopes of 
vanity built on his name. She had hated him in 
secret, but she could not have hated him so heartily 
had there not once been a little love to turn so 
fiercely sour. She could not have trained her eyes 
to smile at him so gently had she not once smiled 
for his own sake. And so, when they brought him 
dead to the gate of his own house, his wife had still 
some shreds of memories for weeds to eke out a show 
of sorrow. 

She passed through the postern in the small round 
tower beside the gateway, knowing that when she 
came out under the portcullis, the funeral train 
would be just reaching the other end of the bridge. 
The little vaulted room in the lower story of the 


24 VIA CRUCIS 


tower was not four steps in width across, from door 
to door; but it was almost dark, and there the Lady 
Goda stopped one moment before she went out to 
meet the mourners. Standing still in the dimness, 
she pressed her gloved hands to her eyes with all 
her might, as though to concentrate her thoughts 
and her strength. Then she threw back her arms, 
and looked up through the gloom, and almost 
laughed; and she felt something just below her 
heart that stifled her like a great joy. Then all 
at once she was calm, and touched her eyes again 
with her gloved hands, but gently now, as though 
smoothing them and preparing them to look upon 
what they must see presently. She opened the 
little door, and was suddenly standing in the midst 
of the frightened herd of retainers and servants, 
while the last strains of the dirge came echoing 
under the deep archway. At that instant another 
sound startled the air —the deep bell-note of the great 
bloodhounds, chained in the courtyard from sunrise 
to sunset; and it sank to a wail, and the wail broke 
to a howl, dismal, ear-rending, wild. Before it had 
died away, one of the Saxon bondwomen shrieked 
aloud, and the next took up the cry, and then an- 
other, as a likewake dirge, till every stone in the 
shadowy manor seemed to have a voice, and every 
voice was weeping for the dead lord. And many of 
the women fell upon their knees, and some of the 
men, too, while others drew up their hoods, and 
stood with bent heads and folded hands against the 
rough walls. 

Slowly and solemnly they bore him in and set the 


VIA CRUGIS 2h 


bier down under the mid-arch. Then Gilbert Warde 
looked up and faced his mother: but he stood aside, 
that she might see her husband ; and the monks and 
song-boys stood back also, with their wax torches, 
which cast a dancing glare through the dim twilight. 
Gilbert’s face was white and stern; but the Lady Goda 
was pale, too, and her heart fluttered, for she had to 
play the last act of her married life before many 
who would watch her narrowly. For one moment 
she hesitated whether to scream or to faint in honour 
of her dead husband. Then, with the instinct of the 
born and perfect actress, she looked wildly from her 
son’s face to the straight, still length that lay be- 
neath the pall. She raised one hand to her forehead, 
pressing back her golden hair with a gesture half 
mad, half dazed, then seemed to stagger forward 
two steps, and fell upon the body, in a storm of 
tears. 

Gilbert went to the bier, and lifted one of his 
mother’s gloved hands from the covered face, and it 
dropped from his fingers as if lifeless. He lifted the 
black cloth pall, and turned it back as far as he could 
without disturbing the woman’s prostrate figure; and 
there lay the Lord of Stoke, in his mail, as he had 
fallen in fight, in his peaked steel helmet, the 
straight, fine, ring-mail close-drawn round his face 
and chin, the silky brown hair looking terribly 
alive against the dead face. But across the eyes 
and the forehead below the helmet there was laid a 
straight black band, and upon his breast the great 
mailed hands clasped the cross-hilted sword that lay 
lengthwise with his body. Gilbert, bareheaded and 


26 VIA CRUCIS | 


unarmed, gazed down into his father’s face for a 
while, then suddenly looked up and spoke to all 
the people who thronged the gateway. 

“Men of Stoke,” he said, “here lies the body of 
Sir Raymond Warde, your liege lord, my father. 
He fell in the fight before Faringdon Castle, and 
this is the third day since he was slain; for the way 
was long, and we were not suffered to pass unmo- 
lested. The castle was but half built, and we were 
encamped about it with the Earl of Gloucester, when 
the king came suddenly from Oxford with a great 
host; and they fell upon us unawares at early morn- 
ing, when we had but just heard the mass and most 
of us were but half armed, or not at all. So we 
fought as we could, and many fell, and not a few 
we killed with our hands. And I, with a helmet on 
my head and a gambison but half buckled upon my 
body, and my hands bare, was fighting with a full- 
armed Frenchman and was hard pressed. But I 
smote him in the neck, so that he fell upon one knee 
and reeled. And even in that moment I saw this 
sight. A score of paces from me, my father and 
Sir Arnold de Curboil met face to face, suddenly and 
without warning, their swords lifted in the act to 
strike; but when my father saw his friend before 
him, he dropped his sword-arm and smiled, and 
would have turned away to fight another; but Sir 
Arnold smiled also, and lowered not his hand, but 
smote my father by the point, unguarded, and thrust 
his sword through head and hood of mail at one 
stroke, treacherously. And so my father, your liege 
lord, fell dead unshriven, by his friend’s hand; and 


VIA CRUCIS 27 


may the curse of man and the damnation of 
Almighty God be upon his murderer’s head, now 
and after I shall have killed him. For, as I would 
have sprung forward, the Frenchman, who was but 
stunned, sprang to his feet and grappled with me; 
and by the time he had no breath left, and the light 
broke in his eyes, Sir Arnold was gone, and our 
fight was lost. So we made a truce to bury our 
dead, and brought them away, each his own.” 

When he had spoken there was silence for many 
moments, broken only by the Lady Goda’s unceasing 
sobs. In the court within, and on the bridge with- 
out, the air grew purple, and dark, and misty; for 
the sun had long gone down, and the light from the 
wax torches, leaping, flaming and flickering in the 
evening breeze, grew stronger and yellower under 
the gateway than the twilight without. The dark- 
robed monks looked gravely on, waiting till they 
should be told to pass into the chapel—men of all 
ages and looks, red and pale, thin and stout, dark and 
fair, but all having that something in their faces that 
marks the churchman from century to century. Be- 
tween them and the dead knight, Gilbert stood still 
with bent head and downcast eyes, with pale face 
and set lips, looking at his mother’s bright hair, and 
at her clutching hands, and listening to the painfully 
drawn breath, broken continually by her agonized 
weeping. Suddenly the bloodhounds’ bay broke out 
again, fierce and deep; and on the instant a high young 
voice rang from the court through the deep arch. 

‘“ Burn the murderer! To Stortford, and burn 
him out!” 


28 VIA CRUGIS 


Gilbert looked up quickly, peering into the gloom 
whence the voice had spoken. He did not see how, 
at the words, his mother started back from the corpse, 
steadied herself with one hand, and fixed her eyes 
in the same direction ; but before he could answer, 
the cry was taken up by a hundred throats. 

“ Burn the traitor! burnthe murderer! To Stort- 
ford! Fagots! Fagots and pitch!” 

High, low, hoarse, clear, the words followed one 
another in savage yells; and here and there among 
the rough men there were eyes that gleamed in the 
dark like a dog’s. 

Then through the din came a rattling of bolts and 
a creaking of hinges, as the grooms tore open the 
stable doors to bring out the horses and saddle them 
for the raid ; and one called for a light and another 
warned men from his horse’s heels. The Lady Goda 
was on her feet, her hands stretched out imploringly 
to her son, turning to him instinctively and for the 
first time, as to the head of the house. She spoke to 
him, too; but he neither heard nor saw, for in his 
own heart a new horror had possession, beside which 
what had gone before was as nothing. He thought 
of Beatrix. 

“Hold!” he cried. ‘ Let no man stir, for no 
man shall pass out who would burn Stortford. Sir 
Arnold de Curboil is the king’s man, and the king 
has the power in England; so that if we should burn 
down Stortford Castle to-night, he would burn Stoke 
Manor to-morrow over my mother’s head. Between 
Arnold de Curboil and me there is death. To-mor- 
row I shall ride out to find him, and kill him in fair 


VIA CRUCIS 29 


fight. But let there be no raiding, no harrying, and 
no burning, as if we were Stephen’s French robbers, 
or King David’s red-haired Scots. Take up the bier; 
and you,” he said, turning to the monks and song- 
men, “take up your chant, that we may fay him in 
the chapel and say prayers for his unshriven soul.” 
The Lady Goda’s left hand had been pressed to 
her heart as though she were in fear and pain; but as 
her son spoke, it fell by her side, and her face grew 
calm before she remembered that it should grow sad. 
Until to-day her son had been in her eyes but a 
child, subject to his father, subject to herself, subject 
to the old manor-priest who had taught him the 
little he knew. Now, on a sudden, he was full- 
grown and strong; more than that, he was master 
in his father’s place, and at a word from him, men- 
at-arms and bondsmen would have gone forth on 
the instant to slay the man she loved, and to burn 
and to harry all that was his. She was grateful to 
him for not having spoken that word; and since 
Gilbert meant to meet Curboil in a single combat, 
she felt no fear for her lover, the most skilled 
man at fence in all Essex and Hertfordshire, and 
she felt sure, likewise, that for his reputation as a 
knight he would not kill a youth but half his age. 
While she was thinking of these things, the 
monks had begun to chant again ; the confusion was 
ended in the courtyard ; the squires took up the bier, 
and the procession moved slowly across the broad 
paved space to the chapel opposite the main gate. 
An hour later Sir Raymond’s dead body lay before 
the altar, whereon burned many waxen tapers. Alone, 


30 VIA CRUCIS 


upon the lowest step, Gilbert was kneeling, with 
joined hands and uplifted eyes, motionless as a 
statue. He had taken the long sword from the dead 
man’s breast, and had set it up against the altar, 
straight and bare. It was hacked at the edges, 
and there were dark stains upon it from its master’s 
last day’s work. In the simple faith of a bloody 
age, Gilbert Warde was vowing, by all that he and 
his held sacred, before God’s altar, upon God’s 
Sacred Body, upon his father’s unburied corpse, that 
before the blade should be polished again, it should 
be black with the blood of his father’s murderer. 

And as he knelt there, his lady mother, now clad 
all in black, entered the chapel and moved slowly 
towards the altar-steps. She meant to kneel beside 
her son; but when she was yet three paces from 
him, a great terror at her own falseness descended 
into her heart, and she sank upon her knees in the 
aisle. 


CHAPTER III 


Very early in the morning, Gilbert Warde was 
riding along the straight road between Sheering 
Abbey and Stortford Castle. He rode in his tunic 
and hose and russet boots, with his father’s sword 
by his side; for he meant not to do murder, but to 
fight his enemy to death, in all the honour of even 
chance. He judged that Sir Arnold must have 
returned from Faringdon; and if Gilbert met him 
now, riding over his own lands in the May morning, 
he would be unmailed and unsuspecting of attack. 
And should they not meet, Gilbert meant to ride up 
to the castle gate, and ask for the baron, and courte- 
ously propose to him that they should ride together 
into the wood. And, indeed, Gilbert hoped that it 
might turn out so; for, once under the gateway, he 
might hope to see Beatrix for a moment; and two 
weeks had passed, and terrible things had happened, 
since he had last set eyes upon her face. 

He met no one in the road; but in the meadow 
before the castle half a dozen Saxon grooms, in 
loose hose and short homespun tunics, were exer- 
cising some of Curboil’s great Normandy horses. 
The baron himself was not in sight, and the grooms 
told Gilbert that he was within. The drawbridge 
was down, and Gilbert halted just before entering 
the gate, calling loudly for the porter. But instead 

31 


$2 VIA CRUCIS 


of the latter, Sir Arnold himself appeared at that 
moment within the courtyard, feeding a brace of 
huge mastiffs with gobbets of red raw meat from a 
wooden bowl, carried by a bare-legged stable-boy 
with a shock of almost colourless flaxen hair, and a 
round, red face, pierced by two little round blue eyes. 
Gilbert called again, and the knight instantly turned 
and came towards him, beating down with his hands 
the huge dogs that sprang up at him in play and 
seemed trying to drive him back. Sir Arnold was 
smooth, spotless and carefully dressed as ever, and 
came forward with a well-composed smile in which 
hospitality was skilfully blended with sympathy and 
concern. Gilbert, who was as thorough a Norman 
‘n every instinct and thought as any whose fathers 
had held lands from the Conqueror, did his best to 
be suave and courteous on his side. Dismounting, 
he said quietly that he desired to speak with Sir 
Arnold alone upon a matter of weight, and as the 
day was fair, he proposed that they should ride 
together for a little way into the greenwood. Sir 
Arnold barely showed a slight surprise, and readily 
assented. Gilbert, intent upon his purpose, noticed 
that the knight had no weapon. 

“It were as well that you took your sword with 
you, Sir Arnold,” he said, somewhat emphatically. 
“No one is safe from highwaymen in these times.” 

The knight met Gilbert’s eyes, and the two looked 
at each other steadily for a moment; then Curboil 
sent the stable-boy to fetch his sword from the hall, 
and himself went out upon the drawbridge and 
ealled to one of the grooms to bring ina horse. In 


VIA CRUCIS 35 


less than half an hour from the time when Gilbert 
had reached the castle, he and his enemy were riding 
quietly side by side in a little glade in Stortford wood. 
Gilbert drew rein and walked his horse, and Sir 
Arnold instantly did the same. Then Gilbert spoke. 

“Sir Arnold de Curboil, it is now full three days 
since I saw you treacherously kill my father.” 

Sir Arnold started and turned half round in the 
saddle, his olive skin suddenly white with anger; but 
the soft fresh colour in Gilbert’s cheek never changed. 

“ Treacherously !” cried the knight, with indig- 
nation and with a questioning tone. 

“Foully,” answered Gilbert, with perfect calm. 
“T was not twenty paces from you when you met, 
and had I not been hampered by a Frenchman of 
your side, who was unreasonably slow in dying, I 
should have either saved my father’s life or ended 
yours, as I mean to now.” 

Thereupon Gilbert brought his horse to a stand 
and prepared to dismount, for the sward was smooth 
and hard and there was room enough to fight. Sir 
Arnold laughed aloud as he sat still in the saddle, 
watching the younger man. 

“So you have brought me here to kill me!” he 
said as his mirth subsided. 

Gilbert’s foot was already on the ground, but he 
paused in the act of dismounting. 

“If you do not like the spot,” he answered coolly, 
‘“‘ we can ride farther.” 

“No, I am satisfied,” answered the knight; but 
before he had spoken the last word he broke into a 
laugh again. 


PR 


34 VIA CRUCIS 


They tied up their horses to trees at a little dis- 
tance, out of reach of one another, and Gilbert was 
the first to return to the ring of open ground. As 
he walked, he drew his father’s sword from its 
sheath, slipped the scabbard from the belt, and threw 
it to the edge of the grass. Sir Arnold was before 
him a moment later; but his left hand only rested 
on the pommel of his sheathed weapon, and he 
was still smiling as he stopped before his young 
adversary. 

“T should by no means object to fighting you,” 
he said, “if I had killed your father in treachery. 
But I did not. I saw you as well as you saw me. 
Your Frenchman, as you call him, hindered your 
sight. Your father was either beside himself with 
rage, or did not know me in my mail. He dropped 
his point one instant, and then flew at me like a 
bloodhound, so that I barely saved myself by slaying 
him against my will. I will not fight you unless 
you force me to it; and you had better not, for 
if you do, I shall lay you by the heels in two 
passes.” 

“ Bragging and lying are well coupled,” answered 
Gilbert, falling into guard. ‘“ Draw before I shall 
have counted three, or I will skewer you like a 
trussed fowl. One—two—” 

Before the next word could pass his lips, Sir 
Arnold’s sword was out, keen and bright as if it 
had just left the armourer’s hands, clashing upon 
Gilbert’s hacked and blood-rusted blade. 

Sir Arnold was a brave man, but he was also | 
cautious. He expected to find in Gilbert a beginner 


VIA CRUCIS 35 


of small skill and reckless bravery, who would 
expose himself for the sake of bringing in a sweep- 
ing blow in carte, or attempting a desperate thrust. 
Consequently he did not attempt to put his brag- 
ging threat into practice, for Gilbert was taller 
than he, stronger, and more than twenty years 
younger. Unmailed, as he stood in his tunic and 
hose, one vigorous sword-stroke of the furious boy 
might break down his guard and cut him half in 
two. But in one respect Curboil was mistaken. 
Gilbert, though young, was one of those naturally 
eifted fencers in whom the movements of wrist and 
arm are absolutely simultaneous with the perception 
of the eye, and not divided by any act of reasoning 
or thought. In less than half a minute Sir Arnold 
knew that he was fighting for his life; the full min- 
ute had not passed before he felt Gilbert’s jagged 
blade deep in the big muscles of his sword arm, and 
his own weapon, running past his adversary, fell 
from his powerless hand. 

In those days it was no shame to strike a dis- 
armed foe, in a duel to the death. As Sir Arnold 
felt the rough steel wrenched from the flesh-wound, 
he knew that the next stroke would kill him. 
Quick as light, his left hand snatched the long 
dagger from its sheath at his left side, and Gil- 
bert, raising his blade to strike, felt as if an icicle 
had pierced his breast; his arm trembled in the 
air, and lost its hold upon the hilt; a scarlet veil 
descended before his eyes, and the bright blood 
gushed from his mouth as he fell straight backward 
upon the green turf. 


36 VIA CRUCIS 


Sir Arnold stepped back and stood looking at the 
fallen figure curiously, drawing his lids down, as 
some short-sighted men do. ‘Then, as the sobbing 
breast ceased to heave and the white hands lay quite 
still upon the sward, he shrugged his shoulders, and 
began to take care of his own wound by twisting a 
leathern thong from Gilbert’s saddle very tight 
upon his upper arm, using a stout oak twig for a 
lever. Then he plucked a handful of grass with his 
left hand and tried to hold his dagger in his right 
in order to clean the reddened steel. But his right 
hand was useless; so he knelt on one knee beside the 
body, and ran the poniard two or three times through 
the skirt of Gilbert’s dark tunic, and returned it to 
its sheath. He picked up his sword, too, and suc- 
ceeded in sheathing it. He mounted his horse, 
leaving Gilbert’s tethered to the tree, cast one more 
glance at the motionless figure on the grass, and rode 
away towards Stortford Castle. 


CHAPTER IV 


Two months after Sir Arnold de Curboil had left 
Gilbert Warde in the forest, believing him to be 
dead, the ghostly figure of a tall, wafer-thin youth, 
leaning on the shoulders of two grey brothers, 
was led out into the warm shadows of the cloister 
in Sheering Abbey. One of the friars carried a 
brown leathern cushion, the other a piece of stiff 
parchment for a fan, and when they reached the 
first stone seat, they installed the sick. man as 
comfortably as they could. 

Three travelling monks, tramping homeward by 
the short forest path from Harlow to Sheering, had 
found Gilbert lying in his blood, not ten minutes 
after the knight had ridden away. Not knowing 
who he was, they had brought him to the abbey, 
where he was at once recognized by the monks who 
had formed the funeral procession on the previous 
evening, and by others who had seen him. The 
brother whose duty it was to tend the sick, an 
old soldier with the scars of a dozen deep wounds 
in him, and by no means a despicable surgeon, pro- 
nounced Gilbert’s condition almost hopeless, and 
assured the abbot that it would be certain death 
to the young Lord of Stoke to send him back to his 
home. He was therefore laid upon a new bed in 
an upper chamber that had fair arched windows 
to the west, and there the brothers expected that 

37 


38 VIA CRUCIS 


Gilbert Warde would before long breathe his last 
and end his race and name. ‘The abbot sent a mes- 
senger to Stoke Regis to inform the Lady Goda of 
her son’s condition, and on the following day she 
came to see him, but he did not know her, for he 
was in a fever; and three days passed, and she came 
again, but he was asleep, and the nursing brother 
would not disturb him. After that she sent mes- 
sengers to inquire about his state, but she herself 
did not come again, whereat the abbot and many 
of the monks marvelled for a while, but afterwards 
they understood. 

Gilbert lived, and the desperate wound slowly 
healed, for he was strong and young, and his blood 
was untainted; but when at last he was allowed to 
stand upon his feet, he seemed to be little more thar 
a fine-drawn shadow. They dressed him first in a 
novice’s frock, because it was easier for him to wear. 
and at last he was well enough to be carried dowr 
from his room, and to sit for an hour upon the stone 
bench in the cloister. One of the brothers sat down 
beside him and slowly fanned his face with a stiff 
sheet of yellow parchment, such as the monks used 
for binding their books; the other went away to his 
work. Gilbert leaned back and closed his eyes, 
drinking in the sun-sweetened air and the scent of 
the flowers that grew in the cloister garden; and 
the indescribable sense of peace descended upon his 
body and soul which comes to men wrested from 
death, when danger is passed and their strength is 
slowly growing again within them. 

It is impossible for any young man of sensitive 


VIA CRUCIS 39 


and believing mind to spend two months in a great 
religious institution of his own faith without feeling 
himself drawn to the religious life. Lying in his 
room, alone for many hours of the day, alone in 
waking watches of the night, though a brother was 
always within call, Gilbert had followed with a sick 
man’s second sight the lives of the two hundred 
monks who dwelt in Sneering Abbey. By asking 
questions, he knew how they rose at dawn, and 
trooped into the dim abbey church to early mass, and 
went to their daily work, the lay-brethren and 
novices in the field, the learned fathers in the library 
and the writing-room. He could follow their daily 
round of prayer and work, and his heart was with 
them in both. Bloodless and emaciated as he lay 
there, the life of love and war which had once 
seemed to him the only one worth living, faded 
away into the dimness of an undesired impossibility. 
He had failed, too, in his first great deed of arms; 
his father’s murderer was alive, and he himself had 
most narrowly escaped death. It seemed to him 
that his thin white hands, which could hardly pull 
the blanket to his chin when he felt cold, could 
never again have strength to grasp sword-hilt or 
hold bridle, and in the blank collapse of his physical 
existence the image of himself as a monk, young, 
ascetic and holy in his life, presented itself with a 
marvellous and luring attraction. He made the 
nursing brother teach him prayers from the offices 
of the night and day, and he repeated them at the 
right hours, feeling that he was taking a real part 
in the monastic existence. Gradually, too, as he 


40 VIA CRUCIS 


caught the spirit of the place, the gospel of forgive. 
ness, ever the stumbling-block of fighting men, ap- 
peared to him as something that could be practised 
without dishonour, and the determination to kill 
Sir Arnold gave way to a sort of attempt at repent- 
ance for having even wished to be revenged upon 
him. 

One thing troubled him constantly and was alto- 
gether beyond his comprehension. His mother 
seemed to have forgotten his very existence, and 
he had not consciously seen her since he had been 
wounded. He asked questions every day, and 
begged the abbot himself to send word to the Lady 
Goda asking her to ride over to the abbey. ‘The 
abbot smiled, nodded, and seemed to promise; but 
if the message was ever sent, it elicited no answer, 
and after a time, as Gilbert grew steadily better, 
not even a messenger came from Stoke Regis to ask 
about him. Now Gilbert had worshipped his mother 
as a sort of superior being, and, like his father, 
had deceived himself with the belief that she was 
devoted to him; so that, as time went on, and he 
was utterly neglected by her, the conviction was 
forced upon him that something terrible and unfore- 
seen had happened. Yet the abbot would tell him 
nothing, nor the brothers who tended him; to the 
best of their knowledge, they said, the Lady of Stoke 
was well. 

“ Before long,” Gilbert would answer, “I shall be 
able to go home and see for myself.” 

And at this the abbot smiled and nodded, and 
began to talk of the weather, which was hot. 


VIA CRUCIS 41 


But to-day, since he had been allowed to leave 
his room, Gilbert was determined to force an ex- 
planation. It lacked yet an hour of midday and 
dinner-time when the abbot came sauntering along 
the cloister, followed at a respectful distance by a 
couple of monks, who walked side by side with 
downcast eyes and hands hidden in their sleeves, 
their cord girdles bobbing and swinging rhyth- 
mically as they walked. As he came up to Gil- 
bert, the nursing brother rose and hid his hands in 
his grey woollen sleeves. 

Gilbert opened his eyes at the sound of the abbot’s 
footsteps, and made a movement as though he would 
have risen to greet the lordly churchman, who had so 
often visited him in his room, and for whom he felt a 
natural sympathy, as for a man of his own race and 
breeding ; for Lambert, Abbot of Sheering, came of 
the great Norman house of Clare, which had taken 
Stephen’s side in the Civil War, a fact which did not 
prevent the aristocratic abbot from talking with 
gentle satire and occasional bitter sarcasm about the 
emptiness of Stephen’s claims. 

He laid his hand on Gilbert’s sleeve to make him 
keep his seat, and sat down beside him on the bench. 
He waved the monks away, and they retired to the 
other end of the cloister, where they all three sat 
down together in silence. The abbot, a delicately 
made man, with high Norman features, a colourless 
beard, once fair, and very bright blue eyes, laid one 
of his beautiful hands kindly upon Gilbert’s. 

* You are saved,” he said cheerfully. “We have 
done our part; youth and sunshine will do the 


42 VIA CRUCIS 


rest; you will grow strong very quickly, now, and in 
a week you will be asking for your horse. They 
found him beside you, and he has been well cared for.” 

“Next week, then,” said Gilbert, “I will ride over 
to Stoke and see my mother. But I think [I shall 
come back and stay with you again—if you will 
have me.” 

Gilbert smiled as he spoke the last words; but the 
abbot’s face was grave and his brows were drawn 
together, as though he were in some trouble. 

“ Better stay with us altogether,” he said, shaking 
his head and looking away. 

Gilbert sat motionless for a few seconds, as if the 
remark had made no impression upon him; then, 
realizing that the words contained some special 
meaning, he started slightly and turned his hollow 
eyes to the speaker’s face. 

“And not go to see my mother?” His voice 
expressed the utmost surprise. 

“¢ Not — not at present,” answered the abbot, taken 
off his guard by the directness of the question. 

Weak as he was, Gilbert half rose from his seat, 
and his thin fingers nervously grasped his compan- 
ion’s arm. He would have spoken, but a sort of 
confusion came over him, as if he could not decide 
which of many questions to ask first, and before 
words could form themselves, the abbot was speak- 
ing to him with gentle authority. 

“Listen to me,” he said ; “sit quietly beside me and 
hear what I have to say, for you are a man, now, and 
it is better that you should know it all at once, and 
from me, than get it distorted, in miserable morsels, 


VIA CRUCIS 43 


from the gossip of the brothers within the next day 
or two.” 

He paused a moment, holding the young man’s 
hand soothingly while keeping him in his seat and 
making him feel that he must stay there. 

“What is it?” asked Gilbert, nervously, with half 
closed eyes. “ Tell me quickly.” . 

« An evil thing,” answered the churchman, “—a 
sad thing, and one of those that change men’s lives.” 

Again Gilbert started in his seat, more violently 
this time than before, and there was the broken ring 
of genuine fear in his voice. 

“My mother is dead!” he cried. . 

“No, not that. She isinno danger. She is well. 
She is more than well; she is happy.” 

Gilbert was staring almost stupidly at his com- 
panion, not in the least understanding that there 
could be any evil news about his mother if all these 
things were true. 

And yet it seemed strange that the abbot should 
lay stress upon the Lady Goda’s happiness, when 
Gilbert had been at death’s door for many weeks, 
and when, as he well knew, she was without news of 
him. 

“Happy!” he echoed, half dazed. 

“Too happy,” answered the prelate. “Your 
mother was married when you had been scarcely 
a month here with us.” 

Gilbert stared into the older man’s face for one 
moment after he had ceased speaking, and then sank 
back against the wall behind him with something 
between a groan and a sigh. One word had struck 


44 VIA CRUCIS 


the ground from under his feet; the next was tw 
pierce his soul. 

*¢ Who is her husband ?” he asked under his breath. 

Before the abbot answered, his grasp tightened 
upon Gilbert’s hands with a friendly grip that was 
meant to inspire courage. 

‘Your mother has married Sir Arnold de Curboil.” 

Gilbert sprang to his feet, as though he had been 
struck in the face by an enemy. A moment earlier 
he could not have risen without help ; a moment later 
he fell backward into the abbot’s arms. 

Nothing that he had felt in his whole short life — 
not all the joys and fears of childhood, which, after 
all, contains the greatest joys and fears in life, com- 
pounded with the clash of his first fighting day and 
the shock of seeing his father killed before his eyes 
—not all these together could be compared with 
what he felt at that plain statement of the dishonour 
done upon his house and upon his father’s memory. 
Yet he was not unconscious. 

“ Now, by the Sacred Blood —” 

Before he could pronounce the solemn vow of re- 
venge that was on his lips, the abbot’s delicate hand 
was almost crushing his mouth with open palm to 
stop the words. 

*¢ Arnold de Curboil, perjured to God, false to his 
king, the murderer of his friend, the seducer of his 
friend’s wife, is fit for my prayers,” said the abbot, 
“not for your steel. Swear no great oaths that you 
will kill him ; still less swear that you will be avenged 
upon your mother; but if you must needs swear 
something, vow rather that you will leave them to 


VIA CRUCIS 45 


their fate and never willingly cross their path again. 
And indeed, whether you promise that or not, you 
must needs keep away from them until you can 
claim your own with the chance of getting it 
back.” 

“My own!” exclaimed Gilbert. “Is Stoke not 
mine? Am [I not my father’s son?” 

*Curboil has got Stoke Regis by treachery, as he 
got your mother. As soon as he had married her 
he took her with him to London, and they two did 
homage to King Stephen, and the Lady Goda made 
apology before the king’s court because her former 
husband had been faithful to the Empress Maud ; and 
she besought the king to bestow the lordship of Stoke 
Regis, with the manor house and all things thereto 
appertaining, upon their present lord, Sir Arnold de 
Curboil, disinheriting you, her son, both because you 
are true to the Empress, and because, as she did 
swear, you tried to slay Sir Arnold by stealth in 
Stortford woods. So you have neither kith nor kin, 
nor lands nor goods, beyond your horse and your 
sword; wherefore I say, it were as well for you to 
stay with us altogether.” 

Gilbert was silent for some time after the abbot 
had ceased speaking. He seemed to be utterly over- 
come by the news that he was disinherited, and his 
hands lay upon his knees, loosely weak and expressive 
of utter hopelessness. Very slowly he raised his face 
at last and turned his eyes upon the only friend that 
seemed left to him in his destitution. 

“So I am an outcast,’ he said, “an exile, a 
beggar ~-—” 


46 VIA CRUCIS 


*“ Or a monk,” suggested the churchman, with a 
smile. 

‘“¢ Or an adventurer,” said Gilbert, smiling also, but 
more bitterly. 

‘*Most of our ancestors were that,” retorted the 
abbot, “and they have picked up a fair living by 
it,’ he added. ‘“ Let me see: Normandy, Maine, 
Aquitaine, Gascony—and England. Not a bad 
inheritance for a handful of pirates matched against 
the world.” 

“ Yes, but the handful of pirates were Normans,” 
said Gilbert, as if that statement alone should have 
explained the conquest of the universe. “But the 
world is half won,’ he concluded, with a rather 
hopeless sigh. 

‘There is enough to fight for yet,” answered the 
abbot, gravely. “The Holy Land is not half con- 
quered, and until all Palestine and Syria shall be one 
Christian kingdom under one Christian king, there 
is earth for Norman feet to tread, and flesh for Nor- 
man swords to hack.” 

Gilbert’s expression changed a little, and a light 
came into his eyes. 

“ The Holy Land—Jerusalem!” The words came 
slowly, each with its dream. ‘“ But the times are too 
old. Who should preach another crusade in our 
day?” 

‘* The man whose word is a lash, a sword, and a 
crown—the man who rules the world to-day.” 

“And who is that?” asked Gilbert. 

‘“ A Frenchman,” answered the abbot — * Bernard 
of Clairvaux, the greatest man, the greatest thinker, 


VIA CRUCIS 47 


the greatest preacher, and the greatest saint of these 
late days.” dt 

“TI have heard of him,” Gilbert answered, with a 
sick man’s disappointment at not learning anything 
new. ‘Then he smiled faintly. “If he is a miracle- 
worker, he might find me a good subject.” 

‘“ You have a home here, Gilbert Warde, and 
friends,” said the abbot, gravely. ‘Stay while you 
will, and when you are ready for the world again you 
shall not lack for acoat of mail, a spare mount, and a 
purse of gold with which to begin your life.” 

“T thank you,” said Gilbert, feebly, but very grate- 
fully. “I feel as if my life were not beginning, but 
ending. I have lost my inheritance, my home, and 
my mother in one hour. It is enough, for it is all, 
and with it is taken love also.” 

“Love?” The abbot seemed surprised. 

‘Can a man marry his mother’s husband’s child?” 
asked Gilbert bitterly, almost contemptuously. 

“No,” answered the abbot; “that would be within 
the forbidden degrees of affinity.” 

For a long time Gilbert sat still in mournful 
silence. Then, seeing that he was very tired, the abbot 
beckoned to the brothers, who came and led him back 
to the stairs, and carried him up to his room. But, 
when he was gone, the Abbot of Sheering walked 
thoughtfully up and down the cloister for a long 
time, even until the refectory bell began to ring for 
dinner, and he could hear the shuffling steps of the 
two hundred hungry monks hurrying to their food, 
through the distant staircases and corridors. 


pe 


é 


A 


CHAPTER V 


AN autumn morning at dawn, the beach at 
Dover, the tide at flood, and a hundred half naked 
sailors launching a long, black Norman sea-boat 
bows on, over chocks through the low surf to the grey 
swell beyond. The little vessel had been beached by 
the stern, with a slack chain hooked to her sides at 
the water-line, and a long hawser rove through a 
rough fiddle-block of enormous size, and leading to 
a capstan set far above high-water mark and made 
fast by the bight of a chain to an anchor buried in 
the sand up to the heavy wooden stock. And nowa 
big old man with streaming grey beard, and a skin 
like a salted ox-hide, was slacking the turns of the 
hawser from the capstan-drum as the boat moved 
slowly down over the well-greased chocks, stopping 
short now and then of her own accord, and refusing 
to move on till twenty stout sailors on each side, their 
legs half buried in the sand, their broad shoulders 
flattened under the planking, their thick brown 
hands planted upon their thighs, like so many 
Atlases, each bearing a world, had succeeded, by 
alternately straining and yielding, in making the 
little vessel rock on her keel, and start again toward 
the water’s edge. On board, the master stood at 
the stern, ready to ship the long rudder as soon as she 
had taken the water. ‘Two men in the bows took in 

48 


VIA CRUCIS 49 


the slack of the cable, by which the anchor had been 
dropped some fifty yards out, so as to keep her head 
straight when she should leave the temporary ways. 
By the mast, for the vessel had but one, stood Gil- 
bert Warde, watching all that was done, with the pro- 
foundly ignorant interest which landsmen always 
show in nautical matters. It seemed very slow to 
him, and he wondered why the man with the long 
beard, far up the beach, did not let go, so that the 
boat might launch herself. And while he was trying 
to solve the problem, something happened which he 
could not understand: a chorus of wild yelis went up 
from the sailors under the sides, the master in the 
stern threw up one hand and shouted, the old man 
let go and yelled back an answer, Gilbert heard a 
rattling of chains, and then all at once the boat 
gathered way, and shot like an arrow through the 
low curling surf, far out upon the heaving grey 
water beyond, while the two men in the bows got 
in the slack of the cable, hand over hand, like mad- 
men, panting audibly, till at last the vessel swung 
off by her head and rode quietly at her anchor. An 
hour later, with twenty sweeps swinging rhythmically 
in the tholes, and a fair southwesterly breeze, the 
sharp-cut boat was far out in the English Channel, 
and before night, the wind holding fair and freshen- 
ing, the master dropped anchor almost under the 
shadow of the Count of Flanders’ castle at Calais. 

So Gilbert Warde left England, a wanderer, disin- 
herited of all that should have been his, owing all 
that he had to Lambert de Clare, Abbot of Sheering, 
in the shape of mail and other armour, with such 

E 


50 VIA CRUOCIS 


fine clothes as a young nobleman should have with 
him on a journey, two horses, and a purse of which 
the contents should last him several months on his 
travels. For attendants he had with him a fair- 
haired Saxon lad who had run away from Stoke to 
Sheering, and had refused to leave Gilbert, whom he 
looked upon as his lawful master; and there was 
with him, too, a dark-skinned youth of his own age, 
a foundling, christened Dunstan by the monks after 
a saint of their order, brought up and taught at the 
abbey, who seemed to know neither whose child he 
was nor whence he came, but could by no means be 
induced to enter the novitiate so long as the world 
had room for wanderers and adventurers. He was a 
gifted fellow, quick to learn and tenacious to remem- 
ber, speaking Latin and Norman French and English 
Saxon as well as any monk in the abbey, quick of 
hand and light of foot, with daring black eyes in which 
the pupils could hardly be found, while the whites were 
of a cold, blue grey and often bloodshot; and he had 
short, straight black hair, and a face that made one 
think of a young falcon. He had begged so hard to 
be allowed to go with Gilbert, and it was so evident 
that he was not born to wear out a church pavement 
with his knees, that the abbot had given his consent. 
During the last weeks before Gilbert’s departure, 
when he was hourly gaining strength and could no 
longer bear to be shut up within the walls of the 
convent, he had made a companion of Dunstan, walk- 
ing and riding with him, for the fellow could ride, 
and sometimes entering into long arguments with 
him about matters of belief and conscience and 


VIA CRUCIS ot 


honour, and the two had become attached to each 
other by their unlikeness; not precisely as friends 
and equals, yet by no means as master and man; it 
was rather the sort of relation which often existed 
between knight and squire, though the two were of 
the same age, and though Gilbert had no immediate 
prospect of winning knightly spurs. - 

It would have been hard, however, to admit 
that Dunstan could ever develop into a knight him- 
self. There were strange little blanks in his ideas 
of chivalry, curious, unfeeling spots in his moral 
organization, which indicated another race, another 
inheritance of thought, the traditions of a world 
older and less simple than the one in which Gilbert 
had been brought up. 

For Gilbert was the type of noble youth in the 
lays when the light of chivalry had dawned upon an 
age of violence, but was not yet fully risen. God, 
honour, woman — these made up the simple trinity 
of a knight’s belief and reverence, from the moment 
when the Church began to make an order of fighting 
men, with ceremonies and obligations of their own, 
thereby forever binding together the great concep- 
tions of true Christianity and true nobility. 

In the absence of anything like real learning 
among the laymen of those days, education in its 
simplest and most original sense played a very large 
part in life, and Gilbert had acquired that sort of 
culture in its highest and best form. The object of 
mere instruction is to impart learning for some distinct 
purpose, but most chiefly, perhaps, in order that it 
may be a means of earning a livelihood. ‘The object 


TInpanvy ~~ 


52 VIA CRUCIS 


of education is to make men, to produce the charac- 
ter of the man of honour, to give men the inward 
grace of the gentleman, which cannot manifest itself 
outwardly save in good manners, modesty of bearing, 
and fearlessness; and such things in earlier days were 
profoundly associated in the minds of men with the 
inward principles and the outward rites of Christian- 
ity. It was the perfect simplicity, and in a measure 
the ample harmony, of beliefs, principles, and rules of 
action that made life possible at all at a time when 
the modern art of government was in its earliest 
infancy, when the idea of a constitution had been lost 
in the chaos of the dark ages, and when the direction 
of kingdoms, principalities, and societies was a purely 
personal matter, wholly dependent upon individual 
talent or caprice, virtue or vice, charity or greed. 
Without some such foundation in the character of 
the times, society, the world, and the Church must 
have fallen a prey to the devouring ambitions of that 
most horrible of human monsters, the princely un- 
believer of the middle ages, who flourished again 
and again, sporadically, from England to Con- 
stantinople, from Paris to Rome, but who almost 
invariably ended in disastrous failure, overcome and 
trodden down by the steadily advancing morality 
of mankind. Such men were John the Twelfth, of 
the evil race of Theodora in Rome, and the Jewish 
Pierleone who lived a hundred years later, and King 
John of England, and last and greatest of all, perhaps, 
as he was most certainly the worst, Cesar Borgia. 
To be a gentleman when Henry Plantagenet was 
a boy of twelve, and Gilbert Warde was going to the 


VIA CRUCIS 53 


Duke of Normandy’s court, implied not many gifts, 
few principles, and two or three accomplishments 
at most; but it meant the possession of those 
simple requirements in their very best accepted 
form, and that species of thoroughness in a few 
matters which has been at the root of social superi- 
ority in all ages. We have heard of.amateur artists, 
amateur soldiers, amateur statesmen; but no one 
has ever heard of an amateur gentleman. Gilbert 
Warde knew little Latin beyond the few prayers 
taught him by the manor priest at Stoke; but in the 
efficacy of those prayers he believed with all his 
heart and soul. The Norman French language of 
the nobles in England was no longer that of their 
more refined cousins over the water; but though his 
tongue betrayed him for an Englishman, Gilbert had 
the something which was of more worth among his 
equals than a French accent—the grace, the un- 
affected ease, the straightforward courtesy, which 
are bred in bone and blood, like talent or genius, 
but which reach perfection only in the atmosphere 
to which they belong, and among men and woyaen 
who have them in the same degree. Possessing 
belief and good manners, the third essential was 
skill in arms, and, as has been seen, Gilvert was a 
match for a swordsman of considerable reputation. 
The only absolutely necessary accomplishment for 
a gentleman in his day was a thorough knowledge 
of the chase as a fine art in all its branches, from 
falconry to boar-hunting, and in this respect Gilbert 
was at least the equal of the average young noble. 
In spite of his youth, he was therefore thoroughly 


54 VIA. CRUCIS 


equipped for the world; and besides the advantages 
here set forth, he had the very great one of feeling 
that, although he might be going among strangers, 
he was going to meet men all brought up to act and 
think like himself, in the belief that their ways of 
acting and thinking were very much better than 
those of other people. 

But as he rode along the dunes, he was not 
reflecting upon his own gifts or prospects. His life 
was strange to him by its sudden and complete 
change, from an existence of more or less peaceful 
enjoyment, in which the certainty of fortune, local 
dignity, and unthwarted love made the idea of 
ambition look empty and foolish, to the state of pos- 
sessing only a pair of good horses, good weapons, and 
a little ready money, with which to lay siege to the 
universe. Yeteven that wide difference of conditions 
was insignificant beside the deeper and sadder mis- 
fortunes upon which the young man brooded as he 
rode, and which had already embittered his young 
existence by the destruction of his highest and most 
beautiful illusion and of his dearest and happiest hope. 

In the fall of his mother’s image from the altar 
upon which he had set it, there was the absolute 
destruction of his own past childhood as it had 
always appeared to him. In the fearful illumination 
of her true nature, in the broad glare of evil, the 
little good there might have been had faded to 
nothing. It was not possible that she. who had 
married her husband’s murderer within the month 
could ever have felt one sincere impulse of love for 
Raymond Warde, nor that she could ever have 


VIA CRUCIS 55 


known the slightest real affection for the son whom 
she had first left to his fate, and then treacherously 
cheated of his birthright. The temple where she had 
been was still in his heart and mourned her in 
emptiness. Jor nothing else had taken the place 
of her there; she was not transformed, she was 
gone, and had taken with her a lifetime of tender 
and gentle memories. When his inward eyes sought 
her they found nothing, and their light was quenched 
in her darkness. She was not as his father was, 
dead in fact, but dead in honour. There he lay, 
as Gilbert had last looked upon his white face and 
stiff, mailed form, himself still, himself as he had 
been in life and as he was thereafter, in that place 
of peace and refreshment where brave men rest. In 
the quiet features was reflected forever the truth 
whereby his life had been lived; in the crossed 
hands upon the breast was the last outward symbol 
and sign of the simple faith that had been life’s 
euide ; in the strong, straight outlines of a strength 
splendid in death was the record of strong deeds 
well done. Alive, he had been to his son the man 
of all others; dead, he was still the man of men, 
without peer and without like. It mattered not 
that he was silent, for he had spoken the truth; 
that he was as motionless as a stone, for the cold 
hand had been swift to thrust and smite, and had 
dealt unforgotten blows in a good cause; that he 
was deaf, for he had heard the cry of the weak, 
and had forborne ; that he was blind, for his eyes 
had seen the light of victory and had looked unflinch- 
ing upon an honourable death. Loyal, true, brave, 


56 VIA CRUCIS 


strong, he lay in his son’s heart, still at all points 
himself. And Gilbert turned his mind’s eyes to 
the darkness on the other side, and many a time, 
as the unwept tears burned in his brain, he wished 
that his mother were lying there too, beside his 
father, dead in the body but alive forever to him in 
that which is undying in woman; to be cherished 
still, still honoured ; to be loved, and still obeyed 
in the memory of precept and teaching; to be his 
mother always, and he to be in thought her child, 
even until the grey years should be upon him, and 
the Bridge of Fear in sight. 

Instead, as his thoughts went back to his home, 
the woman herself faced him, not as he had always 
seen her, but as she had been sometimes seen by 
others. The deed she had done —the greatest, the 
worst, the most irrevocable —was in her face, and 
Gilbert’s unconscious memory brought back the de- 
tails his love of her had once rejected. ‘The cold face 
was as hard as flint, the deep blue eyes were untrue 
and unbelieving, the small red lips were scornfully 
parted to show the cruel little teeth, and there were 
dashes of flame in the russet hair. Better she had 
been dead, better a thousand times that she had 
come to the sharp end before her time, than that such 
a face should be her son’s only memory of his mother. 

The lines of the image had been etched in the 
weak places of his heart with the keen point of his 
first grief, and the biting acid of a new and 
unnatural hate was eating them deeper day by 
day. And when, in spite of himself, his mind 
dwelt upon her and understood that he was curs- 


VIA CRUCIS 57 


ing her who had borne him, he turned back in sheer 
despair to the thought of a religious life. 

But though it drew him and appealed to all in his 
nature which had been uppermost when death had 
almost tripped him into his grave, it spoke but half 
a language now, and was less than half convincing. 
He could understand well enough-that the monas- 
tery might hold the only life for men who had 
fought through many failures, from light to dark- 
ness, from happiness to sorrow —men who loved 
nothing, hoped nothing, hated nothing any longer, 
in the great democracy of despair. They sought 
peace as the only earthly good they might enjoy, 
and there was peace in the cloister. Hope being 
lead in life, they tasted refreshment in the hope of 
a life to come. The convent was good enough for 
the bankrupt of love and war. But there must be 
another rule for those in whom youth was wounded 
but not dead, whose hearts were offended but not 
slain, whose blood was still strong and hot for good 
and evil, for men whose battles were before them 
still. There must be a remedy against fate which 
should not be an offence to God, a struggle against 
God’s will which should not be a revolt, a life in 
which virtue should not mean a prison for soul and 
body, nor the hope of salvation a friar’s cell. 

Like many enthusiasts, knowing nothing of the 
world save by guesswork, and full of an inborn 
belief in the existence of perfection, Gilbert dreamed 
of realizing the harmony of two opposites— the re- 
ligious life and the life of the world. Such dreams 
seemed not so wild in those days, when the very 


58 VIA CRUCIS 


idea of knighthood was based upon them, and when 
many brave and true men came near to making 
them seem anything but fanciful, and practised vir- 
tue in a rough-and-ready fashion which would not 
pass muster in modern society, though it might in 
heaven. ‘The religious idea had taken hold of Gil- 
bert strongly, and before he had left the abbey he 
had fallen into the habit of attending most of the 
offices in the choir, still wearing the novice’s frock 
which had been at first but an invalid’s robe. And 
now that he was out in the world to seek his fortunes, 
tunic and hose, spur and glove, seemed strange to 
him, and he would have felt more at home in a 
friar’s hood. So he felt that in his life he should 
never again quite lose the monastic instinct, and 
that it was well for him that he could not. He 
stood on that perilous thin ridge between past and 
future to which almost every man of heart is soonet 
or later led by fate, where every step may mean a 
fall, and where to fall is almost to be lost. The 
things he had lived for, the things he had hoped, 
the things he had loved, had been taken from him 
violently, and all at once. ‘There was neither clue, 
nor guide, nor hope, and on each side of him yawned 
the hideous attraction of despair. Even the recol- 
lections of a first love were veiled by what he 
understood to be the irrevocable interdiction of the 
Church, and, in his strongly spiritual mood, to think 
of Beatrix appeared to him like a temptation to 
mortal sin. 

In leaving England, without any definite aim, but 
with a vague intention of making his way to Jeru+ 


VIA CRUCIS 59 


salem, he had obeyed the Abbot of Sheering rather 
than followed friendly advice, and his obedience 
had savoured strongly of the monastic rule. Lam- 
bert de Clare, a man of the world before he had be- 
come a churchman, and a man of heart before he was 
a ruler of monks, had understood Gilbert’s state well 
enough, and had forced the best remedy upon him. 
The cure for a broken heart, if there be any, is not in 
solitude and prayer, butinfacing the woundsand stings 
of the world’s life ; and the abbot had almost forcibly 
thrust his young friend out to live like other men ol 
his order, while suggesting a pilgrimage to the Holy 
Land as a means of satisfying his religious cravings. 

As for the material help which Gilbert had re- 
ceived, it was no shame, in an age not sordid, for a 
penniless gentleman to accept both gifts and money 
from a rich and powerful person like the Abbot of 
Sheering, in the certainty of carving out such fortune 
with his own hands as should enable him amply to 
repay the loan. So far as his immediate destination 
was concerned, the abbot, who considered his house 
to be vastly superior to political dissension, and 
secretly laughed at his cousins for supporting King 
Stephen’s upstart cause, had advised Gilbert to make 
his way directly to the court of Geoffrey Plantagenet, 
Duke of Normandy, and Grand Seneschal of France, 
the husband of the Empress Maud, rightful Queen of 
England. Thither he was riding, therefore, with 
Dunstan on his left hand, mounted upon his second 
horse, while Alric, the sturdy little Saxon groom and 
archer, rode behind them on a stout mule laden with 
Gilbert’s possessions. 


CHAPTER VI 


THOSE were the early days of Geoffrey’s lordship 
in Normandy. ‘Twice and three times he came 
up from Anjou with his men-at-arms and his foot- 
men to take possession of his wife’s lawful inherit- 
ance. Again and again he was repulsed and driven — 
back to his own dominions, but at the last he pre 
vailed, and the iron will of the man whose. royal race 
was to give England fourteen kings, forced Normandy 
to submission, and thereafter he ruled in peace. Yet 
he was not so strongly established but that he desired 
sound friendships and strong alliances to support him, 
and at the same time he was anxious to obtain help 
for his wife in her prolonged struggle for the English 
crown. In his office of Grand Seneschal of France 
he generally caused himself to be represented by a 
deputy; but he had lately determined to make a 
journey to Paris, in the hope of winning over the 
young King Louis, and perhaps the beautiful Queen 
Eleanor, who was feudal sovereign, in her own right, 
of Guienne, Poitou and Aquitaine, and in reality a 
more powerful personage than the King himself. 

So it fell out that before Gilbert reached his 
destination he met a great and splendid train riding 
toward him on the highroad, two hundred horse, at 
the very least, and as many footmen, followed by a 
long line of sumpter mules. The road was narrow at 

60 


VIA CRUCIS 6l 


that place, so that Gilbert, with his two men, saw that 
it would be impossible to pass, and though it was not 
natural to him to cede the right of way to any one, 
he understood that, in the face of what was a little 
army, it would be the part of wisdom to draw aside. 
A thick growth of thorn bushes made a natural 
hedge at that part of the road, and Gilbert and his 
companions were obliged almost to back into the 
briers, as four handsomely dressed outriders trotted 
past abreast, not without a glance of rather super- 
cilious inquiry, for they did not fail to see that 
Gilbert was a stranger in their country; and, for 
a traveller, his retinue was anything but impos- 
ing. He, however, barely glanced at them as they 
passed him, for his eyes were fixed upon the advanc- 
ing cavaleade, a river of rich and splendid colour 
flowing toward him between soft green banks. They 
were men who rode in peace; for though a standard 
rose in the middle rank, it was furled and cased in 
leather, and the horsemen who surrounded it were 
dressed in tunic and hose — crimson, green, rich dark 
brown, with the glint of gold, the sheen of silver, 
the lightning of steel, relieving the deep hues of 
dark cloth and velvet here and there. 

A length behind the furled flag rode a man and a 
boy, side by side, and the next riders followed two 
or three lengths behind them. The man, mounted 
on a huge white Norman weight-carrier, kept the 
off side of the road, his great beast trotting leisurely 
with a long pounding step, and an occasional lazy 
shake of the big white head with the iron-grey fore- 
lock and the well-combed mane. ‘The rider sat 


62 VIA CRUCIS 


square and upright in the saddle, the plain leathern 
bridle neither too short nor too long in the light 
strong hand, that just moved perceptibly with the 
horse’s step. He was a man evidently of good height, 
but not over tall, of surpassing beauty of form, young 
in figure, but past middle age if one judged by his 
hard features and already furrowed brow; his deep 
grey eyes looked steadily ahead from beneath black 
eyebrows which contrasted oddly with hair that was 
already iron-grey. There was something immovable 
and fateful about the clean-shaven jaw, the broad flat 
shin, the wide strong mouth —something strangely 
durable that contrasted with the rich softness of his 
splendid dress, as though the man, and what the man 
meant, were to outlive the fashions of the world. 
The boy who rode by his near side, a lad of little 
more than twelve years, was both like him and 
unlike. Sturdy, broad, short-legged, square beyond 
his age, any one could see that he was never to 
inherit his father’s beauty of proportion and grace 
of bearing; but there was something in his face 
that promised all his father’s strength and an even 
greater independence. ‘The grey eyes were the same, 
but nearer together, and almost sinister in their gaze, 
even at that age; the nose was already long and 
rather flat than sharp, and the large straight lips, 
even and close set, would have seemed strong even 
in a grown man’s face. ‘The boy sat upon his small 
grey Andalusian horse as if he had lived a lifetime 
in the saddle, but his twelve-year-old hand was 
heavier on the bridle than ever his father’s had been. 
There was something in the bearing of the two, 


VIA CRUCIS 63. 


father and son, so kingly and high that Gilbert, who 
had been brought up in Norman courtesy, involun- 
tarily rose in the saddle as much as his long stirrups 
would allow, and lifted his cap from his head, sup- 
posing, as was natural, that he was saluting the lord 
of the lands through which he was travelling. The 
other returned the salutation with a wave of the 
hand, looked sharply at Gilbert, and then, to the lat- 
ter’s surprise, drew rein, the lad beside him ranging 
back half a length so as not to be in the way between 
the other two. For a few seconds neither said a 
word, ‘Then the elder man, as though expecting 
something of which the younger was not aware, 
smiled kindly and spoke. His voice was strong and 
manly, but clear and sweet. 

“You are strange here, sir,” he said, with some- 
thing more like an assertion than a question in his 
turn. 

“From England, sir,” answered Gilbert, bowing 
slightly in the saddle. 

The elder man looked hard at him and knit his 
brows. Few English gentlemen had refused alle- 
giance to King Stephen. 

“From England? And what may you be doing 
in Normandy, young sir? Stephen’s friends find 
little friendship here.” 

“JT am not of them, sir,” answered Gilbert, draw- 
ing himself up somewhat haughtily. “I am rather 
of those who would shorten Stephen’s reign by the 
length of his life, and his body by a head.” 

The broad, handsome face of the man with whom 
he was speaking relaxed into a smile, and his son, 


64 VIA CRUCIS 


who had at first eyed Gilbert with distrust, threw 
back his head and laughed. 

“Then I suppose that you are for the Empress,” 
said the man. “But if you are, why are you not 
in Gloucester ?” 

“Sir,” answered Gilbert, “being made homeless 
and landless by Stephen, I chose rather to cut a for- 
tune out of the world than to beg one of the Queen, 
who has none left to give.” 

“You could fight for her,” suggested the other. 

“Ay, sir; and I have, and will again, if such gentle- 
men of Normandy as you will cross the water and 
fight also. But as the matter stands to-day, whoso- 
ever shall break the truce shall break his own neck, 
without serving the Empress. And meanwhile 1 
ride to the Duke of Normandy’s court, and if I may 
serve him, I will, but if not, I shall go farther.” 

“And who are you, sir, that seek the Duke ?” 

“ T am Gilbert Warde, and my fathers held Stoke 
Regis in Hertfordshire from Duke William. But 
Stephen took it when I was lying ill of a wound in 
Sheering Abbey and bestowed it upon another. And 
you, sir? I crave your name.” 

“ Geoffrey Plantagenet,” answered the Duke, 
quietly. “And this is my son Henry, who by 
the grace of God shall yet be King of England.” 

Gilbert started at the name, and then noticed for 
the first time that both father and son wore in their 
velvet caps a short dry sprig of the broom-plant. 
He sprang to the ground and came forward on 
foot, bareheaded, and stood beside the Duke’s near 
stirrup. 


VIA CRUCIS 65 


“ Your pardon, my lord,” he said; “I should have 
known you.” 

“ That might have been hard,” answered Geoffrey, 
“since you had never seen me. But as you were on 
your way to find me and wished to serve me, mount 
again and ride with us to Paris, whither we go.” 

So Gilbert mounted, and would have fallen back 
in the train among the young squires, behind the five 
ranks of knights who rode after the Duke. But 
Geoffrey would not let him take his place at once, 
for he was glad to have news of the long struggle 
in England, the end of which was to set a Plantage- 
net upon the throne; and he asked many questions 
which the young man answered as well as-he could, 
though some of them were not easy; and the boy 
Henry listened with grave face and unwinking eyes 
to all that was said. 

“Tf I had been in my mother’s place,” he said at 
last, in a pause, “ I would have cut off Stephen’s head 
in Bristol Castle.” 

“ And let your uncle Gloucester be put to death 
by Stephen’s wife?” Geoffrey looked at his son 
curiously. 

“She would not have done it,” answered Henry. 
“ There could have been no more war, with Stephen 
dead. But if she had killed my uncle, well, what of 
that ? The crown of England is worth one life, at 
least ! ” 

Gilbert heard and wondered at the boy’s hardness, 
but held his peace. He was surprised also that the 
Duke should say nothing, and the speech of the one 
and the silence of the other clearly foreshadowed the 

F 


66 VIA CRUCIS 


kingdom for one or both. But the boy’s words 
seemed heartless and not altogether knightly to 
Warde, who was himself before all things a man of 
heart ; and the first impression made on him by the 
precocious lad was more or less a wrong one, since 
Henry afterwards turned out a just and kind man, 
though often stern and unforgetful of offence. And 
Gilbert was very far from guessing that the young 
prince was suddenly attracted to him in the strongest 
possible way, and that in the first meeting he had 
unconsciously laid the foundations of a real friend- 
ship. | 

After a time, as the Duke asked no more questions, 
Gilbert took it for granted that he was no longer 
wanted, and fell back to his proper place among the 
riders. The young squires received him with cor- 
diality and not without a certain respect for one 
who, though not even a knight, had been so much 
honoured by their sovereign. And Gilbert himself, 
though he felt at home amongst them at first, as a man 
feels with his own kind, yet felt that he was divided 
from them by the depth of his own misfortunes. 
One of them spoke of his home at Bayeux, and of his 
father, and Gilbert’s face grew grave; another told 
how his mother had herself embroidered in gold the 
fine linen collar that showed above his low-cut tunic. 
Gilbert bit his lips, and looked away at the rolling 
green country. And one, again, asked Gilbert where 
his home might be. 

“ Here,” answered Warde, striking the pommel of 
his saddle with his right hand and laughing rather 
harshly. 


VIA CRUCIS 67 


He was older than most of them, for they ranged 
from fourteen to eighteen years, and were chiefly 
beardless boys who had never seen fight, whose 
fathers had fought Geoffrey Plantagenet until they 
had recognized that he was the master, as the great 
Duke William had been in his day, and then, being 
beaten, had submitted whole-heartedly and all at 
once, as brave men do, and had forthwith sent their 
sons to learn arms and manners at Geoffrey’s court. 
So none of these youths had slain a man with his 
own hand, as Gilbert had at Faringdon, nor had 
any of them faced an enemy with plain steel in a 
quarrel, as Gilbert had faced Sir Arnold de Cur- 
boil. Though Gilbert told little of his story and 
less of his deeds, they saw that he was older than 
they, they felt that he had seen more than they had, 
and they guessed that his hand was harder and 
heavier than theirs. 

As the day wore, and they rode, and halted, and — 
dined together in the vast outer hall of a monastery 
which they reached soon after midday, the young 
men who sat beside Gilbert noticed that he could 
repeat the Latin words of the long grace as well 
as any monk, and one laughed and asked where he 
had got so much scholarship. ! 

‘“‘T lay two months in an abbey,” answered Gilbert, 
“healing of a wound, and the nursing brother taught 
me the monks’ ways.” 

*“ And how came you by such a wound?” asked 
the young squire. 

“ By steel,” answered Gilbert, and smiled, but he 
would say no more. 


68 VIA CRUCIS 


And after that, two or three asked questions of 
Gilbert’s man Dunstan, and he, being proud of his 
master, told all he knew, so that his hearers 
marvelled that such a fighter had not yet obtained 
knighthood, and they foretold that if Long Gilbert, 
as they named him for his height, would stay in the 
Duke’s service, he should not be a squire many 
weeks. 

And on the next day and the days following it 
was clear to them all that Gilbert was in the way 
of fortune by the hand of favour; for as the com- 
pany rode along in the early morning by dewy 
lanes, where Michaelmas daisies were blooming, a 
groom came riding back to say that the young 
Henry — the Count, as they began to call him about 
that time — wished the company of Master Warde, 
to tell him more of England. So Gilbert cantered 
forward and took his place beside the young prince, 
and for more than an hour answered questions of 
all sorts about English men, English trees, English 
cattle, and English dogs. 

“Tt will all be mine before long,” said the boy, 
laughing, “but as I have never seen it, I want your 
eyes.” 

And every day thereafter, in the morning and 
afternoon, Gilbert was sent for to tell the lad stories 
about England; and he talked as if he were speaking 
to a grown man and said many things about his own 
country which had long been in his heart, in the 
strong, good language of a man in earnest. Henry 
listened, and asked questions, and listened again, and 
remembered what he heard, not for a day only, nor 


VIA CRUCIS 69 


a week, but for a lifetime, and in the boy the king 
was growing hour by hour. 

Sometimes, while they talked, the Duke listened 
and said a few words himself, but more often he 
rode on out of the train alone, in deep thought, or 
called one of the older knights to his side ; and when 
Gilbert’s quick ear caught fragments of their conver- 
sation, they were generally talking of country mat- 
ters — crops, horse-breeding, or the price of grain. 

So they rode, and in due time they came to fields 
of mud left by a subsiding river, and here and there 
green hillocks rose out of the dreary expanse, and 
on them were built castles of grey stone. But 
in the flats there were mud hovels of brickmakers 
and of people living miserably by the river; and 
then all at once the ground rose a little to the 
bank, with a street, and houses of brick and stone; 
and between these, upon an island, Gilbert, rising 
in his stirrups to see over the heads of his com- 
panions, descried the castle of the King of France, 
with its towers and battlements, its great draw- 
bridge, and its solid grey walls, in those days one 
of the strongest holds in all the world. 

Then they all halted, and the Duke’s herald rode 
forward to the gate, and the King’s herald was seen 
within, and there was a great blowing of horns and 
a sound of loud, high voices reciting formal speeches 
in a monotone. After that there was a silence, and 
horns again, and more recitation, and a final blast, 
after which the Duke’s herald came back, and the 
King’s herald came out upon the drawbridge, followed 
by men in rich clothes of white cloth, embroidered 


70 VIA CRUCIS 


with gold lilies that shone in the autumn sun, like 
little tongues of flame; and the Duke’s standard was 
unfurled to the river breeze, and the goodly train 
rode slowly over the drawbridge at the end of the 
solid wooden causeway which spanned the main 
width of the stream, and so, by the main gate, into 
the great court of honour. And Gilbert rode close 
behind young Henry, who called him his chancel- 
lor in jest, and would not let him ride out of his 
sight. 

Within the court were great buildings reared 
against the outer walls; but in the midst was the 
King’s hall and dwelling, and in the porch at 
the head of the steps which led to the main door, 
the King and Queen were waiting in state, in their 
robes of ceremony, with all their household about 
them, to receive their Grand Seneschal and brother 
sovereign, Geoffrey Plantagenet. But Gilbert, look- 
ing boldly before him, saw that the King of France 
was a fair, pale man with a yellow beard, strong and 
knightly, but with dull and lifeless blue eyes; and 
Gilbert looked at the lady who sat beside him, and 
he saw that the Queen of France was the most 
beautiful woman in the world; and when his eyes 
had seen her it was long before he looked away. 

He saw a being so unlike all he had known before, 
that his idea of woman changed from that hour for 
his whole life—a most perfect triplicity of beauty, 
grace and elastic strength. Some have doubtless 
possessed each separate perfection, but the names of 
those who had all three are as unforgotten as those 
of conquerors and supreme poets. Gilbert’s eyes 


VIA CRUCIS 41 


fixed themselves, and for a moment he was in a sort 
of waking trance, during which he could not for his 
life have described one feature of the Queen’s face; 
but when she spoke to him, his heart leapt and his 
eyelids quivered, and her image was fixed upon his 
memory forever. Young though he was, it would 
have been contrary to his grave and rather melan- 
choly disposition to lose his heart at first sight to any 
woman, and it was neither love, nor love’s forerunner, 
that overcame him as he gazed atthe Queen. It was 
a purely visual impression, like that of being dazzled 
by a bright light, or made giddy by sudden motion. 
She was as tall as the King, but whereas he was 
heavily and awkwardly built, her faultless proportion 
made an ungraceful movement an impossibility, and 
the rhythmic ease of her slightest gesture expressed 
an unfaltering bodily energy which no sudden fatigue 
nor stress of long weariness could bring down. When 
she moved, Gilbert wished that he might never see 
her in repose, yet as soon as the motion ceased, it 
seemed a crime upon beauty to disturb her rest. 
‘Her face and her throat, uncovered to the strong 
morning light, were of a texture as richly clear as 
the tinted leaves of young orange-blossoms in May ; 
and like the flowers themselves, it seemed to rejoice 
in air and sun, in dew and rain, perfected, not marred, 
by the touch of heat and cold. The straight white 
throat rose like a column from the neck to the 
delicate lobe of the faultless ear, and a generously 
modelled line sprang in a clean curve of beauty to the 
sudden rounding of the ivory chin, cleft in the midst 
by nature’s supreme touch. Low on her forehead 


e 


72 VIA CRUCIS 


the heavy waves of her hair were drawn back to 
each side under the apple-green silk coverchief that 
was kept in place by the crown of state. But she 
wore no wimple, and the broad waves flowed down 
upon her shoulders and hung behind her like a 
heavy mantle. And they were of that marvellous 
living hue, that the westering sun casts through 
oak leaves upon an ancient wall in autumn. All 
in her face was of light, from her hair to her 
white forehead; from her forehead to her radiant 
eyes, deeper than sapphires, brighter than mountain 
springs; from the peach-blossom bloom of her cheeks 
to the living coral of her lips. 

She wore a close-fitting upper garment of fine green 
cloth, embroidered with a small design in silver 
thread, in which the heraldic cross of Aquitaine 
alternated with a conventional flower. ‘The girdle of 
fine green leather, richly embroidered in gold, followed 
exactly the lower line of this close garment round 
the hips, and the long end fell straight from the knot 
almost to the ground. ‘The silken skirt in many folds 
was of the same colour as the rest, but without em- 
broidery. The mantle of state, of a figured cloth 
of gold lined with straw-coloured silk, hung in wide 
folds from her shoulders, her hair falling over it, and 
it was loosely held in place by a twisted cord of gold 
thread across her breast. Contrary to the fashion 
of the day, her sleeves were tight and closed at the 
wrists, and green gloves encased her hands, and were 
embroidered on the back with the cross of Aquitaine. 

Gilbert was standing two steps behind young 
Henry, who was on his father’s left, and was con- 


VIA CRUCIS 73 


sequently directly opposite to the Queen, as the boy 
bent one knee, and taking her gloved hand, touched 
the embroidery with his lips. Gilbert was hardly 
aware that she was looking into his eyes, while his 
own were riveted on her face, and when she spoke, 
he started in surprise. } 

“And who is this?” she asked, smiling, as she saw 
what an effect her beauty produced wpon the young 
man. 

Henry turned half round, with a step backward, 
and took Gilbert’s hand. 

“This is my friend,” he said, dragging him for- 
ward; “and if you like me, you shall please to like 
him, too, and tell the King to knight him at once.” 

* You have a strong recommendation to grace, 
sir,” said the Queen. 

She looked down at the imperious boy’s square 
face and laughed; but looking up and meeting Gil- 
bert’s eyes again, the ring of her laugh changed 
oddly and died away in a short silence. It was 
long since she had looked upon so goodly a man; 
she was weary of her monkish husband, and she was 
the grand-daughter of William of Aquitaine, giant, 
troubadour, and lover. It was no wonder that there 
was light in her eyes, and life in every fibre of her 
beautiful body. 

“J think I shall like your friend,” she said, speak- 
ing to Henry, but still looking at the man. 

And so Gilbert first met the Queen; and as she 
held out her hand to him and he took it, kneeling 
on one knee, she unconsciously drew young Henry 
close to her, and her arm was round his neck, and 


74 VIA CRUCIS 


her hand pressed his shoulder in a very gentle way, 
so that he looked up into her face. But if any one 
had told her then that she should love the man in vain, 
that she should be divided from the fair-haired King 
beside her and become the wife of the broad-faced, 
rough-fisted little boy whose curly head barely 
reached her shoulder, the prophet might have fared 
ill, as readers of the future often do. 

But meanwhile the King stood talking quietly with 
Duke Geoffrey, who presently crossed to salute the 
Queen, not dreaming what strange spirits had taken 
possession of the hearts of three persons in one 
moment. For the third was Henry himself. When 
the Queen gave her right hand to his father her 
other was still on the boy’s shoulder, and when she 
would have withdrawn it he caught it with both 
his own and held it there; and suddenly the blood 
sprang up in his cheeks even to the roots of his hair, 
and for the first and last time in his life Henry 
Plantagenet was almost ridiculous, and wished that 
he might hide his head. Yet he would not loose his 
hold on the Queen’s hand. 


CHAPTER VII 


WuiLE Duke Geoffrey tarried in’ Paris, receiving 
much honour at the King’s court, but obtaining very 
little encouragement in his hope of help against 
Stephen, the time was heavy on the hands of some of 
his followers; but others of them, seeing that they had 
little service and much leisure, made up their minds 
to do not only what was good in their own eyes, but 
sometimes also that which was evil, as a certain chron- 
icler once said of the English knights. For the wine 
of Gascony was good, but some said that the vintage 
of Burgundy was better, and a matter of such weight 
was evidently not to be left undecided; yet the more 
often it came to judgment, the more evidence and 
testimony were required in the case, so that the 
court sat night and day without agreeing upon a 
verdict. 

But Gilbert had never learned to sit for hours 
over a cup, slowly addling his wits and marking the 
hour when the room should begin to swing upon the 
pivot of his head; and Henry kept him constantly 
by his side, saying that he was the only sober man 
in his father’s court, knight or squire; nor would 
the boy let him go, excepting when he himself could 
pass his time with the Queen, and then he was more 
than anxious that Gilbert should disappear. At 
first Eleanor was amused by the lad’s childish pas- 

75 


76 VIA CRUCIS 


sion, but as she herself greatly preferred Gilbert’s 
society to that of Henry, she soon grew weary of 
the rather tame sport which consisted in making 
a boy of twelve years fall desperately in love with 
her. 

Moreover, Henry was precocious and keen-sighted 
beyond his years, and was not long in discovering 
his idol’s predilection for his friend. His chief con- 
solation was that Gilbert himself seemed indifferent, 
and came and went at the Queen’s bidding as though 
he were obeying an order rather than an impulse. 

One lazy autumn afternoon, when the air was as 
hot as summer, and the flies were swarming about the 
open doors of the great stables, and before the deep 
archway that led into the main kitchen, and about 
the open windows of the knights’ and squires’ quar- 
ters,— when the air was still and lazy, and not a 
sound was heard in the vast enclosure of the castle- 
yard,— Henry and Gilbert came out to play at tennis 
in a shady corner behind the church, where there 
was a penthouse that would serve. 

In half a dozen strokes Henry had scored high to 
Gilbert’s nothing, and the boy dropped the ball at his 
feet to tighten the network he had made on his hand 
by winding a bowstring in and out between his fin- 
gers and across the palm, as men did before rackets 
were thought of. Suddenly he turned half round 
and faced Gilbert, planting himself with his sturdy 
legs apart and crossing his arms, which were bare to 
the elbow; for he had taken off his cloth tunic, and 
his embroidered shirt, girdled at the waist by a 
jeathern belt, hung over his scarlet hose, and was 


VIA CRUCIS 77 


wide at the neck and turned back above his elbows. 
He was hatless, ruddy, and not. 

“Will you answer a fair question fairly, Master 
Gilbert?” he asked, looking his friend in the eyes. 

Gilbert had fallen into the habit of treating him 
like a man, as most people did, excepting the Queen, 
and gravely nodded an answer. > 

“Do you not think that the Queen of France is 
the most beautiful woman in the world?” 

“Yes,” answered Gilbert, without a smile, and 
without the slightest hesitation. 

The boy’s eyes, that were so near together, gleamed 
and fixed themselves in rising anger, while a dark 
red flush mounted from his bare threat to his cheeks, 
and from his cheeks to his forehead. 

“Then you love her?” he asked fiercely, and the 
words were thick on his lips. 

Gilbert was not easily surprised, but the conclusion 
was so sudden and unexpected that he stared for a 
moment in blank amazement before he smiled. 

“[?” he exclaimed. “I love the Queen? I 
should as soon think of coveting the King’s crown!” 

Henry looked into Gilbert’s face 2 moment longer, 
and the blood slowly subsided from his own. 

“TI can see that you are in earnest,” he said, pick- 
ing up the ball at his feet, “though I cannot see 
why a man should not covet a king’s crown as well 
as a king’s wife.” He struck the ball. 

“You are young,” said Gilbert, “to ride atilt 
through all the Ten Commandments at once.” 

“Young!” exclaimed the boy, keeping the ball up. 
“So was David when he killed the giant! So was 


18 VIA CRUCIS 


Hercules when he strangled the serpents, as you 
told me the other day. Young!” he cried a second 
time, with forcibly concentrated contempt. “ You 
should know, Master Gilbert, that a Plantagenet of 
thirteen years is the match of any other man of 
twenty. As I can beat you at tennis, though you 
are six years older than I, so I can beat you in other 
matters, and with the Queen herself, even though 
she is half in love with you already, as all the 
court is saying ; and she shall belong to me some 
day, though I have to slay that dish-faced prayer- 
master of a king to get her.” 

Gilbert was no more morally timid than he was 
physically a coward, but he looked round with some 
anxiety as the boy uttered his outrageous boast. 

The place they had chosen for their game was the 
deep and shady corner where the church made a right 
angle with the royal palace. The grass was cropped 
during several hours every morning by a dozen sheep 
and lambs kept in a stable at the other end of the 
castle-yard during the rest of the day. Thespringing 
turf was kept fresh even in summer’s drought by the 
deep shadows. ‘The church wall, built of well- 
hewn blocks of stone, was flat and smooth, and was 
strengthened at regular intervals by buttresses spring- 
ing straight up from the sloping penthouse of 
masonry, some two yards high. The interval be- 
tween the last buttress and the wall of the palace 
made an admirable court, and, indeed, the tennis- 
courts of later days all seem to have been modelled 
upon just such corners of old church architecture. 
The wall of the palace was also smooth and almost 


VIA CRUCIS 79 


without windows on that side. There was one on 
the lower floor, at a considerable distance from the 
corner, but the other was at least four or five yards 
from the ground, just above the point where Gilbert 
and Henry were playing, and was made in Norman 
fashion of two round arches springing from the 
rough-hewn capital of a small stone column between 
them. Gilbert had often noticed. this window, 
though it was above an ordinary side glance, as he 
played the ball at the other wall; and even as he 
turned now, he looked instinctively behind him and 
towards the distant lower window. 

A sweet low laugh rang out into the summer air 
just above his head. He looked up to meet the 
sound, and young Henry missed the ball and turned 
his eyes in the same direction. His bluff, boyish 
face blushed scarlet, but Gilbert turned slowly pale, 
stepped back, and took his round pointed cap from 
his fair hair in acknowledgment of the Queen’s 
presence. 

“You were listening, Madam,” cried the boy, red 
in his anger. “But I am glad you did, since you 
have heard the truth.” 

The Queen laughed again, and drew back her head 
as if to see whether there were any one in the room 
behind her, her white hand lying over the stone sill, 
meanwhile, as if to show that she was not going 
away. Gilbert even thought that the slender fingers 
tapped the stone ledge in a reassuring way. Then 
she looked out again. <A few late flowers and sweet 
herbs grew in an earthenware trough in one division 
of the window. There was sweet basil and rosemary, 


80 VIA CRUCIS 


and a bit of ivy that tried to find a hold upon the 
slender column, and, partly missing it, hung down 
over the window-ledge. A single monthly rose made 
a point of colour among the sweet green things. 

The Queen was still smiling as she rested her 
elbows upon the sill and her chin on her folded 
hands. She was near enough to the tennis-players 
to be heard by them if she spoke in a low tone. 

“Are you angry because Master Gilbert is fright- 
ened?” she asked, looking at Henry. “Or are you 
frightened because his lordship, the Count of Anjou, 
is angry?” she inquired, turning her eyes to Gilbert. 

He smiled at her way of opening the conversation, 
but Henry thought that she was laughing at him and 
grew redder than ever. Not deigning to answer, he 
picked up the ball and served it over the penthouse 
to himself, striking it back cleverly enough. ‘The 
Queen laughed again as he kept his face resolutely 
turned from her. 

“Will you teach me to play, if I come down to 
you?” she asked, looking at the back of his head. 

“Tt is no game for women,” answered the boy, 
rudely, and still keeping the ball up. 

“Will you give me a lesson, Master Gilbert?” 

The laughing eyes were suddenly grave as they 
turned to the young Englishman, the smiling lips 
erew tender, and the voice was gentle. Without 
turning round, Henry felt the change and knew that 
she was looking at his friend; he served the ball 
with a vicious stroke that brought it back too high 
for him. Without turning his head to see where it 
had rolled, the angry boy walked off, picked up his 


VIA CRUCIS 81 


tunic, which lay on the turf at a little distance, 
threw it over his arm, jammed his pointed cap upon 
his head with his other hand, and departed in offended 
dignity. 

The Queen smiled as she looked after him, but 
did not laugh again. 

“Will you teach me to play tennis?” she asked 
of Gilbert, who was hesitating as to what he should 
do. “You have not answered me yet.” 

“T shall at all times do your Grace’s bidding,” 
answered Gilbert, inclining his head a little and 
making a gesture with the hand that held his cap as 
if to put himself at her disposal. 

“At all times?” she asked quietly. 

Gilbert looked up quickly, fearing lest he might 
be tricked into a promise he did not understand, and 
he did not answer at once. But she would not repeat 
the question. 

“Wait,” she said, before hespoke. “Iam coming 
down.” 

With an almost imperceptible gesture, like a 
greeting, she disappeared. Gilbert began to walk 
up and down, his hands behind him, his eyes on the 
ground, and he did not see the tennis-ball which 
Henry had lost until he almost stumbled over it. 
The boy’s words had roused an entirely new train of 
ideas in his mind. Perhaps no man could be so free 
from vanity as not to be pleased, even against his 
will, with the thought that the most beautiful liv- 
ing woman, and she a queen, was in love with him. 
But whatever satisfaction of that sort Gilbert may 
have felt was traversed in an opposite direction by 

ON 


82 VIA CRUCIS 


the cool sense of his own indifference. And be- 
sides, that was a simple age in which sins were 
called by their own names and were regarded with a 
sort of semi-religious, respectful abhorrence by most 
honest gentlemen; and what was only the general 
expression of a narrow but high morality had been 
branded upon Gilbert’s soul during the past months 
in letters that were wounds by the ever-present 
memory of his own mother’s shame. 

The confusion of his reflections was simplified by 
the appearance of Queen Eleanor. At the window 
of the lower story, which opened to the ground, she 
stepped out, looked up and down the deserted yard, 
and then came towards him. Gilbert had been long 
enough in Paris to understand that Queen Eleanor 
had not the slightest regard for the set rules, formal 
prejudices, and staid traditions of her husband’s 
court; and when King Louis gravely protested 
against her dressing herself in man’s mail, bestrid- 
ing his own favourite charger, and tilting at the 
Saracen quintain in the yard, she hinted with more 
or less good or ill nature, according to her mood, 
that her possessions were considerably more exten- 
sive than the kingdom of France, and that what she 
had been taught to do by William of Aquitaine was 
necessarily right, and beyond the criticism of Louis 
Capet, who was descended from a Paris butcher. 
Nevertheless, the Englishman had some reason- 
able doubts and misgivings at finding himself, 
a humble squire, alone in that quiet corner with 
the most beautiful and most powerful of reigning 
queens, But she, whose quick intuition was a gift 





‘PERHAPS THAT IS ONE REASON WHY I LIKE YOU”’ 





VIA CRUCIS 83 


almost beyond nature, knew what he felt before she 
had reached his side. She spoke quite naturally and 
as if such a meeting were an everyday occurrence. 

“You did not know that the window was mine?” 
she said quietly. “I saw how surprised you were 
when I looked cut. It is a window of a little hall 
behind my room. There is a staircase leading down. 
I often come that way, but I hardly ever look out. 
To-day as I was passing I heard that silly child’s 
angry voice, and when I saw his face and heard what 
he said, I could not help laughing.” 

“The young Count is in earnest,” said Gilbert, 
quietly, for it would have seemed disloyal to him to 
join in the Queen’s laughter. 

“In earnest! Children are always in earnest!” 

“They deserve the more respect,” retorted the 
Englishman. 

“T never heard of respecting children,” laughed 
the Queen. 

“You never read Juvenal,” answered Gilbert. 

“You often say things which I never heard 
before,” answered the Queen. “ Perhaps that is one 
reason why I like you.” 

She stopped and leaned against the penthouse, for 
they had reached the corner of the court, and she 
thoughtfully bit a sprig of rosemary which she had 
picked from her window in passing. Gilbert could 
not help watching the small white teeth that severed 
the little curling grey leaves like ivory knives, but 
the Queen’s eyes were turned from him and were 
very thoughtful. 

Gilbert deemed it necessary to say something. 


84 VIA CRUCIS 


“Your Grace is very kind.” He bowed respectfully. 

“What makes you so sad?” she asked suddenly, 
after a short pause, and turning her eyes full upon 
him. “Is Paris so dull? Is our court so grave? 
Is my Gascony wine sour, that you will not be merry 
like the rest, or’’— she laughed a little — “or are 
you not treated with the respect and consideration 
due to your rank?” 

Gilbert drew himself up a little as if not pleased 
by the jest. 

“You know well that I have no rank, Madam,” 
he said ; “and though it should please you to com- 
mand of me some worthy deed, and I should, by the 
grace of God, deserve knighthood, yet I would not 
have it save of my lawful sovereign.” 

“Such as teaching me to play tennis?’’ she asked, 
seeming not to hear the end of his speech. “You 
should as well be knighted for that as for any other 
thing hard to do.” 

“Your Grace is never in earnest.” 

“Sometimes I am.” Her eyelids drooped a little 
as she looked at him. “Not often enough, you 
think? And you—too often. Always, indeed.” 

“Tf I were Queen of France, I could be lght- 
hearted, too,” said Gilbert. “But if your Grace 
were Gilbert Warde, you should be perhaps a sadder 
man than I.” 

And he also laughed a little, but bitterly. Eleanor 
raised her smooth brows and spoke with a touch of 
irony. 

“Are you so young, and have you already such 
desperate sorrows ?”’ 


VIA CRUCIS 85 


But as she looked, his face changed, with that look 
of real and cruel suffering which none can counter- 
feit. He leaned back against the penthouse, looking 
straight before him. Then she, seeing that she had 
touched the nerve in an unhealed wound, glanced 
sidelong at him, bit upon her sprig of rosemary again, 
turned, and with half-bent head walked slowly along 
to the next buttress; she turned again there, and 
coming back stood close before him, laying one hand 
upon his folded arm and looking up to bis eyes, that 
gazed persistently over her head. 

“IT would not hurt you for the world,” she said 
very gravely. “I mean to be your ment your best 
friend — do you understand ?”’ 

Gilbert looked down and saw her upturned face. 
It should have moved him even then, he thought, and 
perhaps he did not himself know that between her 
and him there was the freezing shadow of a faint 
likeness to his mother. 

“You are kind, Madam,” he said, somewhat for- 
mally. “A poor squire without home or fortune can 
hardly be the friend of the Queen of France.” 

She drew back from him half a step, but her out- 
stretched hand still rested on his arm. 

“What have lands and fortune to do with friend- 
ship —or with love?” she asked. “Friendship’s 
home is in the hearts of men and women; friend- 
ship’s fortune is friendship’s faith.” 

“ Ay, Madam, so it should be,” answered Gilbert, 
his voice warming in a fuller tone. 

“'Then be my friend,” she said, and her hand 
turned itself palm upward, asking for his. 


86 VIA CRUCIS 


He took it and raised it to his lips in the act of 
bending one knee. But she hindered him; her fin- 
gers closed on his with a strength greater than he had 
supposed that any woman could possess, and she 
held him and made him stand upright again, so that 
he would have had to use force to kneel before her. 

“Leave that for the court,’ she said; “ when we 
are alone let us enjoy our freedom and be simply 
human beings, man and woman, friend and friend.” 

Gilbert still held her hand, and saw nothing but 
truth in the mask of open-hearted friendship in which 
she disguised her growing love. He was young 
and thought himself almost friendless; a generous 
warmth was suddenly at his heart, with something 
compounded of real present gratitude and of the 
most chivalrous and unselfish devotion for the future. 

She felt that she had gained a point, and she forth- 
with claimed the privilege of friendship. 

“And being friends,” she said, still holding his 
hand as he stood beside her, “will you not trust me 
and tell me what it is that seems to break your 
heart? It may be that I can help you.” 

Gilbert hesitated, and she saw the uncertainty in 
his face, and pressed his hand softly as if persuading 
him to speak. 

“Tell me!” shesaid. “Tell me about yourself!” 

Gilbert looked at her doubtfully, looked away, and 
then turned to heragain. Her voice had a persuasion 
of its own that appealed to him as her beauty could not. 
Almost before he knew what he was doing he was 
walking slowly by her left side, in the shade of the: 
church, telling her his story; and she listened, 


VIA CRUCIS 87 


silently interested, always turning her face a little 
toward his, and sometimes meeting his eyes with 
eyes of sympathy. He could not have told his tale 
to a man; he would not have told it to a woman he 
loved; but Eleanor represented to him a new and 
untried relation, and the sweet, impersonal hght 
of friendship waked the dark places of his heart to 
undreamt confidence. 

He told her what had befallen him, from first to 
last, but the sound of his own words was strange to 
him; for he found himself telling her what he had 
seen two and three years ago, in the light of what he 
had known but a few months, yet almost as if he had 
known it from the first. More than once he hesi- 
tated in his speech, being suddenly struck by the 
horror of what he was telling, and almost doubting 
the witness of his own soul to the truth. One thing 
only he did not tell—he never spoke of Beatrix, 
nor hinted that there had been any love in his life. 

They turned, and turned again many times, and 
he was hardly aware that at the end the Queen had 
linked one hand in his right arm and gently pressed it 
from time to time in sign of sympathy. And when 
he had finished, with a quaver in his deep voice as he 
told how he had come out into the world to seek his 
fortune, she stopped him, and they both stood still. 

“Poor boy!” she exclaimed softly. “Poor Gil- 
bert!’ —and her tone lingered on the name, — “the 
world owes you a desperate debt—but the world 
shall pay it!” 

She smiled as she spoke the last words, pressing 
his arm more suddenly and quickly than before; and 


88 VIA CRUCIS 


he smiled, too, but incredulously. Then she looked 
down at her own hand upon his sleeve. 

“But that is not all,” she continued thoughtfully; 
“was there no woman—no love —no one that was 
dearer than all you lost?” 

A faint and almost boyish blush rose in Gilbert’s 
cheek, and disappeared again instantly. 

“They tock her from me, too,” he said in a low, 
hard voice. “She was Arnold de Curboil’s daughter 
— when he married my mother he made his child my 
sister. You know the Church’s law!” 

Eleanor was on the point of saying something im- 
pulsively, but her eyelids suddenly drooped and she 
checked herself. If Gilbert Warde did not know 
that the Church granted dispensations in such cases, 
she saw no good reason for telling him. 

“ Besides,”’ he added, “I could not have her now, 
unless I could take her from her father by force.” 

“No,” said the Queen, thoughtfully. “Is she 
fair?” 

“Very dark,” said Gilbert. 

“T meant, is she beautiful?” 

“To me, yes: the most beautiful in the world. 
But how should I know? I have never heard others 
speak of her; she is not beautiful as your Grace is, 
—not radiantly, supremely, magnificently perfect, 
— yet to my eyes she is very lovely.” 

“T should like to see her,” said the Queen. 

In the silenve that followed they began to walk 
up and down again side by side, but Eleanor’s hand 
no longer rested on Gilbert’s arm. She could see 
that his eyes were fixed upon a face that was far 


VIA CRUGIS 89 


away, and that his hand longed for a touch not hers; 
and a painful little thrill of disappointment ran 
through her, for she was not used to any sort of 
opposition, in great things or small. The handsome 
Englishman attracted her strangely, and not by his 
outward personality only. From the first a sort of 
mystery had hurg over him, and she had felt, when 
she was with him, the inexplicable fascination of a 
curiosity which she should be sure to satisfy sooner 
or later. And now, having learned something of 
his life, and liking him the more for what she knew, 
she was suddenly filled with an irresistible longing 
to see the girl who had made the first mark on Gil- 
bert’s life. She tried to conjure up the young face, 
and the dark hue he had spoken of brought the vision 
of a fateful shadow. Her mind dwelt upon the girl, 
and she started visibly when Gilbert spoke to her. 

“And has your Grace no deed for me to do?” he 
asked. “Is there nothing whereby I may prove my 
thanks ?” 

“Nothing, save that you be indeed my friend — 
a friend I can trust, a friend to whom I may speak 
safely as to my own soul, a friend whom I may tell 
how heartily I hate this life I lead!” 

She uttered the last words with a sudden rising 
accent of unruly discontent, as genuine as every 
other outward showing of her vital nature. 

“How can your life be hateful?” asked Gilbert, 
in profound astonishment, for he did not know her 
half as well as she already knew him. 

“How can it be anything else?” she asked. 
“ How should life not be hateful, when every natural 


90 VIA CRUCIS 


thing that makes life worth living is choked as 
soon as it is awake? Oh, I often wish I were a 
man!” 

“Men do not wish you were,” answered Gilbert, 
with a smile. 

Suddenly, while they were speaking, a sound of 
voices filled the air with loud chanting of Latin 
words. Instinctively the Queen laid her hand on 
Gilbert’s sleeve and drew him into the shadow of 
a buttress, and he yielded, scarcely knowing what 
he did. The chanting swelled on the air, and a 
moment later the procession began to appear beyond 
the corner of the church. Two and two, led by one 
who bore a cross, the song-boys in scarlet and white 
came first, then Benedictine monks in black, then 
priests of the cathedral in violet cloth with fine white 
linen surplices and bearing wax candles. And they 
all chanted as they walked, loudly, fervently, as if 
a life and a soul depended on every note. Then, as 
the Queen and Gilbert looked on from the shade 
where they stood, they saw the cancpy of cloth of 
gold borne on its six gilded staves by slim young 
men in white, and beneath it walked the vener- 
able bishop, half hidden under the vast embroid- 
ered cope from which the golden monstrance 
emerged, grasped by his closely wrapped hands; 
and his colourless eyes were fixed devoutly upon 
the Sacred Host, while his lips moved in silent 
prayer. 

Just as the canopy was in sight the procession 
halted for some time. In the shadow of the buttress 
Eleanor knelt upon the turf, looking towards the 


VIA CRUCIS 91 


Sacred Host, and Gilbert dropped upon one knee at 
her side, very reverently bending his head. 

Eleanor looked straight before her with more 
curiosity than religious fervour, but in her ear she 
heard Gilbert’s deep voice softly chanting with the 
monks the psalms he had so often sung at Sheering 
Abbey. The Queen turned her head at the sound, 
in surprise, and watched the young man’s grave 
face for a moment without attracting his attention. 
Apparently she was not pleased, for her brows were 
very slightly drawn together, the corners of her eyes 
drooped, and the deep bright blue was darkened. At 
that moment the canopy swayed a little, the ancient 
bishop moved his shoulders under the heavy cope in 
the effort of starting again, and the procession began 
to move onward. 

Next after the bishop, from behind the end 
of the church, the King came into sight, walking, 
monk-like, with folded hands, moving lips and 
downeast eyes, the long embroidered bliaut reach- 
ing almost to his feet, while the scarlet mantle, lined 
with blue and bordered with ermine, fell straight 
from his shoulders and touched the turf as he walked. 
He was bareheaded, and as Eleanor noticed what 
was evidently intended for another act of humility, 
the serene curve of her closed lips was sharpened in 
scorn. And suddenly, as she gazed at her husband’s 
cold, white features in contempt, she heard Gilbert’s 
voice at her elbow again, chanting the Latin words 
musically and distinctly, and she turned almost with 
a movement of anger to see the bold young face sad- 
dened and softened by the essence of a profound belief. 


92 VIA CRUCIS 


“Was I born to love monks!” she sighed hali 
audibly; but as she looked back at the procession 
she started and uttered a low exclamation. 

Beside her husband, but a little after him as the 
pageant turned, a straight, thin figure came into sight, 
clad in a monk’s frock scarcely less dazzling white 
than the marvellous upturned face. At HEleanor’s 
exclamation Gilbert also had raised his eyes from the 
ground, and they fixed themselves on the wonderful 
features of the greatest man of the age, while his 
voice forgot to chant and his lips remained parted 
in wonder. Upon the bright green grass against 
the background of hewn stone walls, in the glorious 
autumn sunshine, Bernard of Clairvaux moved like 
the supernal vision of a heavenly dream. His head 
thrown back, the delicate silver-fair beard scarcely 
shadowing the spiritual outlines of an almost divine 
face, his soft blue eyes looked upward, filled with a 
light not earthly. The transparent brow and the 
almost emaciated cheeks were luminously pale, and 
seemed to shed a radiance of their own. ) 

But it would have been impossible to say what it 
was in the man’s form or face that made him so 
utterly different and distinct from other men. It 
was not alone the Christlike brow, nor the noble 
features inherited from a line of heroes; it was not 
the ascetic air, the look of bodily suffering, nor 
the fine-drawn lines of pain which, as it were, 
etched a shadowy background of sorrow upon which 
the spiritual supremacy blazed like a rising star: 
it was something beyond all these, above name 
and out of definition, the halo of saintship, the 


VIA CRUCIS Q3 


glory of genius, the crown of heroism. Of such a 
man, one’s eyes might be filled, and one might say, 
‘Let him not speak, lest some harsh tone or imper- 
fect speech should pierce the vision with sharp 
discord, as a rude and sudden sound ends a soft 
dream.’ Yet he was a man who, when he raised 
his hand to lead, led millions like children; who, 
when he opened his lips to speak, spoke with the 
tongue of men and of angels such words as none 
had spoken before him — words which were the truth 
made light; one who, when he took pen in hand to 
write to the world’s masters, wrote without fear or 
fault, as being the scribe of God, but who could 
pen messages of tenderest love and gentlest counsel 
to the broken-hearted and the heavy-laden. 

Gilbert’s eyes followed the still, white glory of 
the monk’s face, till the procession turnéd in a wide 
sweep behind the wing of the palace, and even then 
the tension of his look did not relax. He was still 
kneeling with fixed gaze when the Queen was stand- 
ing beside him. The scorn was gone from her lips 
and had given place to a sort of tender pity. She 
touched the young man’s shoulder twice before he 
started, looked up, and then sprang to his feet. 

“Who is that man?” he asked earnestly. 

“Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux,’’ answered the 
Queen, looking faraway. “ialmost worshipped him 
once, when I was a child,—it is the will of Heaven 
that I should lose my heart to monks!” 

She laughed, as she had laughed from the window. 
“Monks?” Gilbert repeated the word with curi- 


osity. 


94 VIA CRUCIS 


“Are you one of those persons for whom it is 
necessary to explain everything?” asked Eleanor, 
still smiling and looking at him intently. “I think 
you must be half a monk yourself, for I heard you 
singing the psalms as sweetly as any convent 
scholar.” 

“Even if I were not half a monk, but one alto- 
gether, I should not wholly understand your Grace’s 
speech;”’ Gilbert smiled, too, for he was immeasur- 
ably far from guessing what was in her mind. 

“So I have thought, in all these weeks and days 
while we have been together.” 

Her eyes darkened as she looked at him, but his 
were clear and calm. 

“Do you understand this?” she asked, and she 
laid her two hands upon his shoulders. 

“What?” he asked in surprise. 

“This,” she said, very softly, drawing herself near 
to him by her hands. 

Then he knew, and he would have straightened 
himself, but her hands sprang to meet each other 
round his neck, and her face was close to his. But 
the vision of his own sinful mother rose in her eyes 
to meet him. 

She held him fast, and three times she kissed him 
before she would let him go. 


CHAPTER VIII 


GiLBERT had reached Paris in the train of Duke 
Geoffrey in September; the Christmas bells were ring- 
ing when he first caught sight of the walls and towers 
of Rome. As he drew rein on the crest of a low hill, 
the desolate brown waste of the Campagna stretched 
behind him mile upon mile to northward, toward 
the impenetrable forests of Viterbo, and Rome was 
at last before him. Before him rose the huge half- 
ruined walls of Aurelian, battered by Goth and 
Saracen and imperial Greek; before him towered the 
fortress of Hadrian’s tomb, vast, impregnable, fero- 
cious. Here and there above the broken crenellation 
of the city’s battlements rose dark and slender towers, 
square and round, marking the places where strong 
robbers had fortified themselves within the city. 
But from the point where Gilbert halted, Rome | 
seemed but a long brown ruin, with portions stand- 
ing whole, as brown as the rest under the bright 
depths of vaulted blue, unflecked by the least fleece 
of cloud, in the matchless clearness of the winter’s 
morning. Profound disappointment came upon him 
as he looked. With little knowledge and hardly any 
information from others who had journeyed by the 
same road, he had built himself an imaginary city 
of unspeakable beauty, wherein graceful churches 
rose out of sunlit streets and fair open places planted 

95 


96 | VIA CRUCIS 
with lordly avenues of trees. There, in his thoughts, 
walked companies of men with faces like the face of 
the great Bernard, splendid with innocence, radiant 
with the hope of life. Thither, in his fancy, came the 
true knights of the earth, purified of sin by vigils in 
the holy places of the East, to renew unbroken vows 
of chastity and charity and faith. There, in his 
dream, dwelt the venerable Father of Bishops, the 
Vicar of Christ, the successor of Peter, the Servant 
of the servants of God, the spotless head of the Holy 
Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church. There, in 
his heart, he had made the dwelling of whatsoever 
things are upright and just and perfect in heaven, 
and pure and beautiful on earth. ‘That was the city 
of God, of which his soul was the architect, and in 
which he was to be a dweller, in peace that should 
pass understanding. 

He had left behind him in Paris another vision 
and one that might well have dazzled him—such 
favour as falls to few; such hopes as few can plant 
in their lives and still fewer can rear to maturity; 
such love as few indeed could hope for—the love 
of supreme and royal beauty. 

When he had ridden out of the castle on the island, 
older by some months, richer by such gifts as it was 
no shame for him to take of Duke Geoffrey and young 
Henry Plantagenet, he had believed himself wiser, 
too, by half a lifetime. 

He was confident in his own strength, in his own 
wisdom, in his own endurance; he fancied that he 
had fought against a great temptation, where he had 
in truth been chilled and terrified by the haunting 


VIA CRUCIS OT 


vision of another’s evil; he imagined that the little 
sharp regret, which stung his heart with long- 
ing for the sweetness of a sin that might have 
been, was the evil remnant of a passion not wholly 
quenched, whereas it was but the craving of a 
natural vanity that had not been strong enough to 
overcome a repugnance which he himself only half 
understood. 

He seemed in his own eyes to ie made the sacri- 
fice of his worldly future for the sake of his knightly 
ideal; but in truth, to a man without ambition, the 
renunciation had been easy and had been made in 
acquiescence with his real desires, rather than in 
opposition to them. 

And now he looked upon the city of his hope, and 
it crumbled to a dusty ruin under his very hand; he 
stood on ground made reverent by the march of his- 
tory and sanctified by the blood of Christians, and it 
was but one great wilderness, of which he himself 
was thecentre. His heart sank suddenly within him, 
and his fingers clutched at the breast of his tunic 
under his surcoat, as though the pain were bodily 
and real. Long he sat in silence, bending a little 
in the saddle, as if worn out with fatigue, though 
he had ridden only three hours since daybreak. 

“Sir,” said his man Dunstan, interrupting his 
master’s meditations, “here is an inn, and we may 
find water for our hoxses.” 

Gilbert looked up indifferently, and then, as there 
was no near building in sight, he turned inquiringly 
to his man. A sardonic smile played on Dunstan’s 
lean dark face as he pointed to what Gilbert had 


H 


98 VIA CRUCIS 


taken for three haystacks. They were, indeed, noth- 
ing but conical straw huts standing a few steps aside 
from the road, thirty yards down the hill. The 
entrance to each was low and dark, and from the one 
issued wreaths of blue smoke, slowly rising in the 
still, cold air. At the same entrance a withered 
bough proclaimed that wine was to be had. A ditch 
beyond the furthest hut was full of water, and at 
some distance from it a rude shed of boughs had been 
set up to afford the horses of travellers some shelter 
from winter rain orsummer sun. As Gilbert looked, 
a man came out, bowing himself almost double to 
pass under the low aperture. He wore long goatskin 
breeches and a brown homespun tunic, like a monk’s 
frock, cut short above the knees, and girdled with 
a twisted thong. Shaggy black hair thatched his 
square head, and a thin black beard framed the yellow 
face, which had the fever-stricken look of the dwellers 
in the Campagna. 

Though this was the first halting-place of the kind 
to which Gilbert had come in the Roman plain, he 
was no longer easily surprised by anything, and he 
did not even smile as he rode forward and dis- 
mounted. 

Besides his own men he had with him the mule- 
teer who acted as guide and interpreter, and without 
whom it was impossible for a foreigner to travel in 
Italy. The peasant bowed to the ground, and led 
Gilbert to the entrance of the hut where he usually 
served his customers with food and drink, and in the 
gloom within Gilbert saw a rough-hewn table and 
two benches standing upon the well-swept floor of 


VIA CRUCIS 99 


beaten earth. But the Englishman made signs that 
he would sit outside, and the scanty furniture was 
brought out into the open air. The third hut was a 
refuge and a sleeping-place for travellers overtaken 
at nightfall on their way to the city. 

“The monk is asleep,” said the. peasant host, lift- 
ing his finger to his lips because Gilbert’s men were 
talking loud near the entrance. 

Gilbert understood as much as that without his 
interpreter; for in those days the Provengal tongue 
was an accomplishment of all well-born persons, and 
it was not unlike certain dialects of Italy. 

“A monk?” repeated Gilbert, indifferently. 

“He calls himself one, and he wears a grey 
frock,” answered the other. “ But we are glad when 
he comes, for he brings us good fortune. And you 
may see that I speak the truth, since he came late in 
the night, and your lordship is the first guest at the 
huts this morning.” 

“Then you know him well?” 

“Every one knows him,” answered the man. 

He turned, and Gilbert saw him lift up a hurdle 
of branches and disappear underground. His cellar 
was deep and cool, one of the many caverns which 
communicate with the catacombs and riddle the 
Campagna from Rome to the hills. Gilbert seated 
himself upon the smaller of the two benches at the 
end of the table; his three men took the other, and 
laid aside their caps out of respect for their master. 
The horses were tethered under the shed of boughs 
till they should be cool enough to be watered. ‘The 
southern side of the hut was sunny and warm, and 


100 VIA CRUCIS 


the place smelled of dry grass, of clean straw, and, 
faintly, of smouldering fire. 

Gilbert was hardly conscious that he was thinking 
of anything as he stared out at the rolling waste, fold- 
ing his hands together upon the hilt of his long sword. 
Just then a man emerged from the third hut, drew 
himself up facing the sun, and rubbed his eyes be- 
fore he looked toward the party at the other tabie. 
When he saw them, he hesitated for a moment, and 
then came up to Gilbert with the apparent intention 
of addressing him. 

Above the height of average men, the figure looked 
unnaturally tall by its gauntness, and the heavy 
folds of the grey woollen frock fell together below 
the breast as if they covered a shadow. Long, 
bony hands, that seemed woven of sinews and leather, 
but which were not without a certain nervous refine- 
ment, hung from loose-jointed brown wrists left bare 
by sleeves that were too short. The head was so 
roughly angular that even the thick masses of dark 
brown hair which fell to the shoulders could not make 
the angles seem like curves, and the face displayed 
the fervent features of a fanatic—dark, hollow 
cheeks, deep-sunk, blazing eyes, the vast lines of an 
ascetic mouth, a great jaw scarcely fringed by the 
scant black beard. Gilbert saw before him a face 
and figure that might have belonged to a hermit of 
Egypt, an ascetic of the Syrian desert, a John the 
Baptist, an Anthony of Thebes. The man wore a 
broad leathern girdle; a blackened rosary, with beads 
as large as walnuts, hung from his side and ended in 
a rough cross of wrought iron. 


VIA CRUCIS 101 


Gilbert half rose from his seat, moved to one end 
of the short bench, and invited the stranger to sit 
beside him. The monk bent his head slightly, but 
not a feature moved as he took the proffered place in 
silence. He folded his great hands on the edge of 
the rough-hewn board and stared at the ruinous 
brown city to southward. 

“You are a stranger,” he said in Provencal, after 
a long pause and in a singularly musical voice, but 
without turning his eyes to Gilbert. 

“IT have never seen Rome before,” answered Gil- 
bert. 

“Rome!” There was a sort of almost heartbroken 
pity in the tone of the single syllable that fell from 
the lips of the wandering monk. _ 

“You have never seen Rome before? There it 
lies, all that is left of it—the naked bones of the 
most splendid, the most beautiful, the most powerful 
city in the world, murdered by power, done to death 
by popes and emperors, by prefects and barons, 
sapped of life by the evil canker of empire, and left 
there like a dead dog in the Campagna, to be a prey 
to carrion beasts and a horror to living men.”’ 

The gaunt stranger set his elbows upon the table 
and bit his nails savagely, while his burning eyes 
fixed themselves on the distant towers of Rome. 
Then Gilbert saw that this man was no common 
wandering friar, begging a meal for his frock’s sake, 
but one who had thoughts of his own, and with whom 
to think was to suffer. 

“It is true,” said Gilbert, “that Rome is less fair 
to see than I had supposed.”’ 


102 VIA CRUCIS 


“And you are deceived of your hopes before you 
have entered her gate,’ returned the other. “Are 
you the first? Are you the last? Has Rome made 
an end of deceiving, and found the termination of 
disappointment? Rome has deceived and disap- 
pointed the world. Rome has robbed the world of 
its wealth, and devoured it, and grown gaunt to the 
bone. Rome has robbed men of their bodies and of 
their lives, and has torn them limb from limb wan- 
tonly, as a spoiled hawk tears a pheasant and scatters 
the bright feathers on the ground. Rome has robbed 
men of their souls and has fed hell with them to its 
surfeit. And now, in her turn, her grasping hands 
have withered at the wrists, her insatiable lips are 
cracking upon her loosening teeth, and the mistress 
of the world is the sport of Jews and usurers.”’ 

“You speak bitterly,” said Gilbert, looking curi- 
ously at his new acquaintance. 

The monk sighed, and his eyes softened wonder- 
fully as he turned to the young man. He had been 
speaking in a tone that slowly rose to shrillness, like 
a cry of bodily pain. When he spoke again his voice 
was low and sweet. 

“ Bitterly, but for her sake, not for mine,”’ he said. 
“If I have given my life for her, she will not give 
me hers. Though I have laid at her feet all that I 
had, she shall put nothing into my hand nor give me 
anything but a ditch and a handful of earth for my 
bones, unless some emperor or pope shall leave them 
upon a gallows. But I have asked of her, for her- 
self and her own sake, that she should do by herself 
honourably, and draw her neck from the yoke and 


VIA CRUCIS 108 


shake off the burdens under which she has stumbled 
and fallen. I have asked of her to stand upright 
again, to refuse to eat from the hand that has 
wounded her, and not to hearken to the voice of 
violence and cursing. I have asked that Rome 
should cast out the Stranger Emperor, and cast down 
the churchman from the king’s throne, and take 
from him the king’s mask. I have. asked Rome 
to face her high robbers whom she calls barons, 
her corruption, her secret weakness, as a brave man 
faces his sins and confesses them and steadfastly 
purposes to offend God no more. All this I have 
asked, and in part she has heard; and I have paid 
the price of my asking, for I am an outcast of many 
kingdoms and a man excommunicated under the 
Major Interdiction.” 

A gentle smile, that might have been half indiffer- 
ence, half pity, wreathed the ascetic lips as he spoke 
the last words. They were not empty words in those 
days, and unawares Gilbert shrank a little from his 
companion. 

“T see that you are a devout person,” said the friar, 
quietly. “Let my presence not offend you at your 
meal. I go my way.” 

But as he began to rise, Gilbert’s hand went out, 
and his fingers met round the skeleton arm in the 
loose grey sleeve. 

“Stay, sir,” he said, “and break your fast with 
us. Jam not such a one as you think.” 

“You shrank from me,” said the stranger, hesitat- 
ing to resume his seat. 

“YT meant no discourtesy,” answered Gilbert. “Be 


104 VIA CRUCIS 


seated, sir. You call yourself an outcast. Iam but 
little better than a wanderer, disinherited of his own.” 

“And come you hither for the Pope’s justice?” 
asked the friar, scornfully. “There is no Pope in 
Rome. Our last was killed at the head of a band of 
fighting men, on the slope of the Capitol, last year, 
and he who is Pope now is as much a wanderer as 
you and I. And in Rome we have a Republic and 
a Senate, and justice of a kind, but only for Romans, 
and claiming no dominion over mankind ; for to be 
free means to set free, to live means to let live.” 

“T shall see what this freedom of yours is like,” 
said Gilbert, thoughtfully. “For my part I am not 
used to such thoughts, and though I have read some 
history of Rome, I could never understand the Roman 
Republic. With us the strongest is master by natural 
law. Why should the strong man share with the 
weak what he may keep for himself? Or if he must, 
in your ideal, then why should not the strong nation 
share her strength and wealth with her weak neigh- 
bour? Is it not enough that the strong should not 
wantonly bruise the weak nor deal unfairly by him? 
The Normans can see no more harm or injustice in 
holding than we see in taking what we can; and 
so we shall never understand your republics and 
your senates.”’ 

“ Are youa Norman, sir?” asked the friar. “Are 
you a kinsman of Guiscard and of them that last 
burnt Rome? I do not wonder that the civilization 
of a republic should seem strange to you! ” 

Gilbert was listening, but his eyes had wandered 
from the friar’s face in the direction of the dusty road 


VIA CRUCIS 105 


that led to Rome, and between his companion’s words 
his quick ear had caught the sound of hoofs, although 
no horses were yet in sight but his own. Just as 
the friar ceased speaking, however, a troop of seven 
riders appeared at the turn of the road. They were 
rough-looking men in long brown cloaks that were 
in tatters at the edge; they wore round caps of mail 
on their heads, with a broad leathern strap under the 
chin; their faces were dark, their beards black and 
unkempt, and they rode small, ragged horses, as ill 
cared for as themselves. 

Gilbert sprang up almost as soon as he saw them, 
for he knew that, not being travellers, they could 
hardly be anything but highwaymen. His own men 
were on their feet as soon as he, while the muleteer 
guide disappeared round the hut quietly and swiftly, 
like a mouse when a cat is in sight. Gilbert made 
straight for his horses, followed by Dunstan and the 
groom; but before he could reach them, two of the 
riders had jumped the ditch from the road and inter- 
cepted him, while the others rode on toward the shed 
to carry off his horses. His sword was out in a flash, 
his men were beside him, their weapons in their 
hands, and the grimy riders drew theirs also; it was 
like a little storm of steel in the bright air. The 
Englishman’s long blade whirled half a circle above 
his head ; the blow would beat down the horseman’s 
guard and draw blood, too. 

But in mid-air his wrist was seized in the sudden 
grasp of sinewy fingers, and the friar was already 
between him and his adversary, warning the other 
off with his outstretched hand. The loose sleeve had 


106 VIA CRUCIS 


slipped back from his wrist, baring a brown, emaciated 
arm and elbow upon which the swollen veins seemed 
to twist and climb like leafless vines upon a with- 
ered tree. His lips were white, his eyes blazed, and 
his voice was suddenly harsh and commanding. 

“Back!” he cried, almost savagely. 

To Gilbert’s very great astonishment, the single 
word produced an instantaneous and wonderful effect. 
The riders lowered their weapons, looked at one 
another, and then sheathed them; the others, who were 
loosing Gilbert’s horses and mules, suddenly desisted 
at the sound of the friar’s voice. Then the one near- 
est to Gilbert, who was a shade less grimy than the 
rest, and who wore in his cap a feather from a pheas- 
ant’s tail, slipped to the ground, and bending low 
under his tattered brown cloak, took the hem of the 
monk’s frock in his right hand and kissed it fer- 
vently. Gilbert stood aside, leaning upon his un- 
sheathed sword, and his wonder grew as he looked on. 

“We ask your pardon, Fra Arnoldo,” cried the 
chief, still kneeling. “How could we guess that 
you were breakfasting out here this morning? We 
thought you far in the north.” 

“And therefore thought yourselves free to rob 
strangers and steal cattle, and cut one anothers’ 
throats ?” 

“This is probably a part of the civilization of a 
republic,” observed Gilbert, with a smile. 

But the highwaymen, all dismounted now, came 
crowding to the feet of Arnold of Brescia in pro- 
found, if not lasting, contrition, and they begged a 
blessing of the excommunicated monk. 


CHAPTER IX 


GILBERT lodged at the sign of the Lion, over 
against the tower of Nona, by the bridge of Sant’ 
Angelo. . The inn was as old as the times of Charle- 
magne, when it had been named in honour of Pope 
Leo, who had crowned himemperor. But the quarter 
was at that time in the hands of the great Jewish 
race of Pierleoni, whose first antipope, Anacletus, 
had not been dead many years, and who, though they 
still held the castle and many towers and fortresses 
in Rome, had not succeeded in imposing the antipope 
Victor upon the Roman people, against the will of 
Bernard of Clairvaux. 

Rome lay along the river, in those days, like 
wreckage and scum thrown up on the shore of a 
wintry sea. Some twenty thousand human beings 
were huddled together in smoky huts, most of which 
were built against the outer walls and towers of the 
nobles’ strongholds —a miserable population, living 
squalidly in terrible times, starving while the nobles 
fought with one another, rising now and then like a 
vision of famine and sword to take back by force the 
right of life which force had almost taken from them. 
Gilbert wandered through the crooked, unpaved 
streets, in and out of gloomy courts and over deso- 
late wastes and open places, the haunts of ravenous 
dogs and homeless cats that kept themselves alive 
on the choice pickings of the city’s garbage. He 

107 


108 VIA CRUCIS 


went armed and followed by his men, as he saw that 
other gentlemen of his condition did, and when he 
knelt in a church to hear mass or to say a prayer, he 
was careful to kneel with his back to the wall or to 
a pillar, lest some light-handed worshipper should 
set a razor to his wallet strings or his sword-belt. 
At his inn, too, he lived in a state of armed defence 
against every one, including the host and the other 
guests; and the weekly settlement was a weekly 
battle between Dunstan, who paid his master’s scores, 
the little Tuscan interpreter, and Ser Clemente, the 
innkeeper, in which the Tuscan had the most un- 
comfortable position, finding himself placed buffer- 
like between the honest man and the thief, and 
exposed to equally hard hitting from both. Rome 
was poor and dirty and a den of thieves, murderers, 
and all malefactors, dominated alternately by a family 
of half-converted Jews, who terrorized the city from 
strong points of vantage, and then, on other days, by 
the mob that followed Arnold of Brescia when he 
appeared in the city, and who would have torn down 
stone walls with their bare hands at his merest 
words, as they would have faced the barons’ steel 
with naked breast. At such times men left their 
tasks — the shoemaker his last, the smith his anvil, 
the crooked tailor his bench — to follow the northern 
monk to the Capitol, or to some church where he was 
to speak to them; and after the men came the women, 
and after the women the children, all drawn along 
by the mysterious attraction which they could 
neither understand nor resist. The tramping of 
many feet made a dull bass to the sound of many 


VIA CRUCIS 109 


human voices, high and low, crying out lustily for 
‘Arnold, a Senate, and the Roman Republic’; and 
then taking up the song of the day, which was a 
ballad of liberty, in a long minor chant that broke 
into a jubilant major in the burden —the sort of 
song the Romans have always made in time of change, 
the kind of ballad that goes before the end of a king- 
dom, like a warning voice of fate. 

On such days, when the mob went howling and 
singing after its idol, southwards to the Capitol 
or even to the far Lateran where Marcus Aurelius 
sat upon his bronze horse watching the ages go by, 
then Gilbert loved to wander in the opposite direc- 
tion, across the castle bridge and under the haunted 
battlements of Sant’ Angelo, where evil Theodora’s 
ghost walked on autumn nights when the south wind 
blew, and through the long wreck of the fair portico 
that had once extended from the bridge to the basilica, 
till he came to the broad flight of steps leading to the 
walled garden-court of old Saint Peter’s. There he 
loved to sit musing among the cypresses, wondering 
at the vast bronze pine-cone and the great brass pea- 
cocks which Symmachus had brought thither from 
the ruins of Agrippa’s baths, wherein the terrible 
Crescenzi had fortified themselves during more than 
a hundred years. Sitting there alone, while Dun- 
stan puzzled his uncertain learning over deep-cut 
inscriptions of long ago, and Alric, the groom, threw 
his dagger at a mark on one of the cypress trees, hun- 
dreds of times in succession, and rarely missing his 
aim, Gilbert felt, in the silence he loved, that the soul 
of Rome had taken hold of his soul, and that in Rome 


110 VIA CRUCIS 


it was good to live for the sake of dreaming, and that 
dreaming itself was life. The past, with his mother’s 
sins, his own sorrows, the friendship of the boy 
Henry, the love of Queen Eleanor, were all infinitely 
far removed and dim. ‘The future, once the magic 
mirror in which he had seen displayed the glory of 
knightly deeds which he was to do, was taken up 
like a departing vision into the blue Roman sky. 
Only the present remained, the idle, thoughtful, 
half-narcotic present, with a mazy charm no man 
could explain, since so far as any bodily good was 
concerned there was less comfort to be got for 
money, more fever to be taken for nothing, and a 
larger element of danger in everyday life in Rome 
than in any city Gilbert had traversed in his wander- 
ings. Yet he lingered and loved it rather for what 
it denied him than for what it gave him, for the 
thoughts it called up rather than for the sights it 
offered, for that in it which was unknown, and there- 
fore dear to dwell upon, rather than for the sadness 
and the darkness and the evil that all men might 
feel. 

But through all he felt, and in all he saw, welding 
and joining the whole together, there was the still 
fervour of that something which he had at first known 
in Sheering Abbey — something to which every fibre 
of his nature responded, and which, indeed, was 
the mainspring of the world in that age. For devo- 
tion was then more needful than bread, and it profited 
a man more to fight against unbelievers for his 
soul’s sake than to wear hollows in altar-steps with 
his knees, or to forget his own name and put off 


VIA CRUCIS 111 


his own proper character and being, as a nameless 
unit in a great religious order. 

At first the enormous disappointment of Rome had 
saddened and hurt him. He had fancied that where 
there was no head there could be no house, that 
where the leader was gone the army must scatter 
and be hewn in pieces. But as he stayed on, from 
week to week and from month to month, he learned 
to understand that the Church had never been more 
alive, more growing, and more militant than at that 
very time when the true and rightful pontiffs were 
made outcasts one after the other, while their places, 
earthly and spiritual, were given to instruments of 
feud and party. For the Church was the world, 
while Rome meant seven or eight thousand half- 
starved and turbulent ruffians, with their wives and 
children, eager always for change, because it seemed 
that no change could be for the worse. 

But in the ancient basilica of Saint Peter there was 
peace; there the white-haired priests solemnly offici- 
ated in the morning and at noon, and toward evening 
more than a hundred rich voices of boys and men 
sang the vesper psalms in the Gregorian tones; 
there slim youths in violet and white swung silver 
censers before the high altar, and the incense floated 
in rich clouds upon the sunbeams that fell slanting 
to the ancient floor; there, as in many a minster 
and cloister of the world, the Church was still her- 
self, as she was, and is, and always will be; there 
words were spoken and solemn prayers intoned which 
had been familiar to the lips of the Apostles, which 
are familiar to our lips and ears to-day, and of 


112 VIA CRUCIS 


which we are sure that lips unborn will repeat 
them to centuries of generations. Gilbert, type of 
Christian layman, kneeled in the old cathedral, and 
chanted softly after the choir, and breathed the 
incense-laden air that seemed as natural to him as 
ever the hay-scented breeze of summer had been, and 
he was infinitely refreshed in soul and body. But 
then again, alone in his room at the Lion Inn, late 
in the night, when he had been poring over the 
beautifully written copy of Boéthius, given him by 
the Abbot of Sheering, he often opened wide the 
wooden shutters of his window and looked out at 
the castle and at the flowing river that eddied and 
gleamed in the moonlight. ‘Then life rose before 
him in a mystery for him to solve by deeds, and he 
knew that he was not to dream out his years in the 
shadowy city, and the strong old instinct of his race 
bade him go forth and cut his fortune out of the 
world’s flank alive. Then his blood rose in his 
throat, and his hands hardened one upon the other, 
as he leaned over the stone sill and drew the night 
air sharply between his closed teeth; and he resolved 
then to leave Rome and to go on in search of strange 
lands and masterful deeds. On such nights, when 
the wind ble w down the river in the spring, it brought 
to him all the hosts of fancy, spirit armies, ghostly 
knights, and fairy maidens, and the forecast shadows 
of things tocome. ‘There was a tragic note, also; 
for on his right, as he looked, there rose the 
dark tower of Nona, and from the highest turret he 
could clearly see in the moonlight how the long 
rain-bleached rope hung down and swayed in the 


VIA CRUCIS 113 


breeze, and the noose at the end of it softly knocked 
upon the tower wall; more than once, also, when he 
had looked out in the morning, he had seen a corpse 
hanging there by the neck, stiff and staring and wet 
with dew. 

But when the spring day dawned and the birds 
sang at his window, and when, looking out, he felt 
the breath of the sweet south and saw that Rome 
smiled again, then his resolutions failed, and instead 
of bidding Dunstan pack his armour and his fine 
clothes for a journey, he made his men mount and 
ride with him to the far regions of the city. Often 
he loitered away the afternoon in the desolate regions 
of the Aventine, riding slowly from one lonely 
church to another, and sometimes spending an hour 
in conversation with a solitary priest who, by living 
much alone and among inscriptions and old carvings, 
had gathered a little more learning than was common 
among the unlettered Romans. 

He met with no adventures; for though the high- 
ways in the country swarmed with robbers always 
on the watch for a merchant’s train or for a rich 
traveller, yet within the city’s limits, small as was 
the authority of the Senate and of the Prefect, thieves 
dared not band together in numbers, and no two or 
three of them would have cared to come to blows 
with Gilbert and his men. 

Nor did he make friends in Rome. His first in- 
tention had been to present himself to the principal 
baron in the city, as a traveller of good birth, and 
to request the advantages of friendship and protec- 
tion; and so he would have done in any other 

I 


114 VIA CRUCIS 


European city. But he had soon learned that Rome 
was far behind the rest of the world in the social 
practices of chivalry, and that in placing himself 
under a Roman baron’s protection he would, to all 
intents and purposes, be taking service instead of 
accepting hospitality. Even so, he might have been 
willing to take sucha position for the sake of adven- 
ture; yet he could by no means make up his mind 
to a choice between the half-Jewish Pierleoni and 
the rough-mannered Frangipani. To the red-handed 
Crescenzi he would not go; the Colonna of that time 
were established on the heights of Tusculum, and the 
Orsini, friends to the Pope, had withdrawn to distant 
Galera, in the fever-haunted marsh northwestof Rome. 

But here and there he made the acquaintance of 
a priest or a monk whose learned conversation har- 
monized with his thoughts and helped the grave 
illusion in which — perhaps out of sheer idleness — 
he loved to think himself back in the abbey in Eng- 
land. And so he led a life unlike the lives around 
him, and many of the people in the quarter learned 
to know him by sight, and called him and his 
men ‘the English’; and as most of the people of 
Rome were very much occupied with their own 
affairs, chiefly evil, Gilbert was allowed to live as 
he pleased. But for the fact that even his well-filled 
purse must in the course of time be exhausted, he 
might have spent the remainder of his life in the 
Lion Inn, by the bridge, carelessly meditative and 
simply happy. But other forces were at work to 
guide his life into other channels, and he had reck- 
oned ill when he had fancied, being himself unmoved, 


VIA CRUCIS 116 


that the love of such a woman as Queen Eleanor was 
a mere incident without consequence, forgotten like 
a flower of last year’s blossoming. 

Several times during the winter and in the spring 
that followed, the friar Arnold came to see him in 
his lodgings and talked of the great things that were 
coming, of the redemption of man from man by the 
tearing down of all sovereign power, whether of pope 
or emperor, or king or prince, to make way for the 
millennium of a universal republic. Then the fanat- 
ic’s burning eyes flashed like beacons, his long arms 
made sudden and wild gestures, his soft brown hair 
stood from his head as though lifted by a passing 
breeze, and his whole being was transfigured in the 
flash of his own eloquence. When he spoke to 
the Romans with that voice and with that look, 
they rose quickly to a tumult, as the sea under a 
gale, and he could guide them in their storming to 
ends of destruction and terror. But there was no 
drop of southern blood in Gilbert’s veins nor any- 
thing to which the passionate Italian’s eloquence 
appealed. Instead of catching fire, he argued; in- 
stead of joining Arnold in his attempt to turn the 
world into a republic, he was more and more per- 
suaded of the excellence of all he had left behind him 
in the north. He incarnated that aristocratic temper 
which has in all times, since Duke William crossed 
the water, leavened the strong mass of the Anglo- 
Saxon character, balancing its rude democratic 
strength with the keenness of a higher physical 
organization and the nobility of a more disinterested 
daring, and again and again rousing the English- 


116 VIA CRUCIS 


speaking races to life and conquest, when they were 
sunk deep in the sordid interests of trade and money- 
making. So when Arnold talked of laws and insti- 
tutions which should again make Rome the mistress 
of the world, Gilbert answered him by talking of 
men who had the strength to take the world and to 
be its masters and make it obey whatsoever laws 
they saw fit to impose. Between the two there was 
the everlasting difference between theory and action; 
and though it chanced that just then Arnold, the 
dreamer, was in the lead of change and revolution, 
while Gilbert, the fighter, was idling away weeks 
and months in a dream, yet the fact was the same, 
and in manly strength and inward simplicity of 
thought Gilbert Warde, the Norman, was far nearer 
to the man who made Rome imperial than was the 
eloquent Italian who built the mistress city of his 
thoughts out of ideas and theories, carved and 
hewn into shapes of beauty by the tremendous tools 
of his wit and his words. At the root of the great 
difference between the two there was on the one side 
the Norman’s centralization of the world in himself, 
as being for himself, and on the other the Latin’s 
power and readiness to forget himself in the imagi- 
nations of an ideal state. 

“Men are talking of a second Crusade,” said 
Arnold, one day, when he and Gilbert had chanced 
to meet in the garden court of Saint Peter’s. 

Gilbert was standing with his back against one of 
the cypress trees, watching the fiery monk with 
thoughtful eyes. 

“They talk of Crusades,” said Arnold, stopping 


? 


VIA CRUCIS 117 


to face the young man. “They talk of sending hun- 
dreds of thousands of Christian men to die every 
death under God’s sun in Palestine —for what? To 
save men? To lift uparace? To plant good, that 
good may grow? ‘They go for none of those things. 
The sign on their breasts is the cross; the word on 
their lips is Christ; the thought in their hearts is the 
thought of all your ruthless race—to take from 
others and add to your own stores; to take land, 
wealth, humanity, life, everything that can be taken 
from conquered man before he is left naked to die.” 

Gilbert did not smile, for he was wondering 
whether there were not some truth in the monk’s 
accusation. 

“Do you say this because Norman men hold half 
of your Italy?” he asked gravely. “Have they 
held it well or ill?” 

“Til,” answered Arnold, fixing his eyes sharply 
on Gilbert’s face. “But that is not the matter; 
some of them have helped me, too. There are good 
men and bad among Normans, as among Saracens.” 

“T thank you,” said Gilbert, smiling now, in spite 
of himself. 

“The devils also believe and tremble,” retorted 
Arnold, grimly quoting. “The taking of the South 
proves my words; it is not half my meaning. Men 
take the cross and give their lives for a name, a 
tradition, the sacred memories of a holy place. They 
will not give a week of their lives, a drop of their 
blood, for their fellow-men, nor for the beliefs that 
alone can save the world.” 

“ And what are those beliefs?” asked Gilbert. 


99 


118 VIA CRUCIS 


Arnold paused before he replied, and then as he 
lifted his face, it was full of light. 

“Faith, Hope, Charity,’’ he answered, and then, 
as his head drooped with a sudden look of hopeless- 
ness, he turned away with slow steps toward the 
great gate. 

Gilbert did not change his position as he looked 
after him rather sadly. The man’s perfect sim- 
plicity, his eagerness for the most lofty ideals, the 
spotless purity of his life, commanded Gilbert’s most 
true admiration. And yet to the Norman, Arnold of 
Brescia was but a dreamer, a visionary, and a mad- 
man. Gilbert could listen to him for a while, but 
then the terrible tension of the friar’s thought and 
speech wearied him. Just now he was almost glad 
that his companion should depart so suddenly; but 
as he watched him he saw him stop, as if he had 
forgotten something, and then turn back, searching 
for some object in the bosom of his frock. 

“T had forgotten what brought me here,” said the 
friar, producing a small roll of parchment tied and 
bound together with thin leathern laces, and tied 
again with a string of scarlet silk to which was 
fastened a heavy leaden seal. “I have here a letter 
for you.” 

“A letter!”? Gilbert showed a not unnatural sur- 
prise. He had never received a letter in his life, and 
in those days persons of ordinary importance rarely 
sent or received messages except by word of mouth. 

“T went to your lodging,” replied the monk, hand- 
ing Gilbert the parchment. “I guessed that I might 
find you here, where we have met before.” 


VIA CRUCIS 119 


“J thank you,” said Gilbert, turning the roll over 
in his hands as if hardly knowing what todo. “How 
came you by this?” 

“ Last night there arrived messengers from France,” 
answered Arnold, “bringing letters for the Senate 
and for me, and with them was. this, which the 
messenger said had been delivered into his hand by 
the Queen of France, who had commanded him to 
find out the person to whom it was addressed, and 
had promised him a reward if he should succeed. I 
therefore told him that I would give it to you.” 

Gilbert was looking at the seal. The heavy disk 
of lead through which the silken strings had been 
drawn was as large as the bottom of a drinking-cup 
and was stamped with the device of Aquitaine; 
doubtless the very one used by Duke William, for 
it bore the figures of Saint George and the Dragon, 
which Eleanor was afterwards to hand down te 
English kings to this day. Gilbert tried to pull 
the silk cord through the lead, but the blow that had 
struck the die had crushed and jammed them firmly. 

“Cut it,” suggested the friar, and his ascetic face 
relaxed in a smile. 

Gilbert drew his dagger, which was a serviceable 
blade, half an ell long, and as broad as a man’s three 
fingers under the straight cross-hilt, and as sharp as a 
razor on both edges, for Dunstan was a master at 
whetting. Gilbert cut the string and then the laces, 
and slipped the seal into his wallet, unrolling the 
stiff sheet till he found a short writing, some six or 
eight lines, not covering half the page, and signed, 
*Eleanora R.’ 


120 VIA CRUCIS 


But when he had opened the letter he saw that it 
was not to be read easily. Nevertheless, his eye 
lighted almost at once upon the name which of all 
others he should not have expected to find there, 
‘Beatrix.’ There was no mistaking the letters, and 
presently he found them once again, and soon after 
that the sense was clear to him. 

‘If this reach you,’ it said, in moderately fair 
Latin, ‘greeting. I will that you make haste and 
come again to our castle in Paris, both because you 
shall at all times be welcome, and more especially 
now, and quickly, because the noble maiden Beatrix 
de Curboil is now at this court among my ladies, and 
is in great hope of seeing you, since she has left her 
father to be under my protection. Moreover, Ber- 
nard, the abbot, is preaching the Cross in Chartres 
and other places, and is coming here before long, 
and to Vézelay. Beatrix greets you.’ 

“Can you tell me where I can find the messenger 
who brought you this?” asked Gilbert, looking up 
when he had at last deciphered every word. 

But Arnold was gone. The idea that an acquaint- 
ance whom he had been endeavouring to convert to 
republican doctrines should be in correspondence 
with one of those sovereigns against whom he so 
bitterly inveighed had finally disgusted him, and he 
had gone his way, if not in wrath, at least in dis- 
pleasure. Seeing himself alone, Gilbert shrugged his 
shoulders indifferently, and began to walk up and 
down, reading the letter over and over. It was very 
short, but yet it contained so much information that 
he found some difficulty in adjusting his thoughts to 


VIA CRUCIS 121 


what was an entirely new situation, and one which 
no amount of thinking could fully explain. He was 
far too simple to suppose that Eleanor had called 
Beatrix to her court solely for the sake of bringing 
him back to Paris. He therefore imagined the most 
complicated and absurd reasons fot Queen Eleanor’s 
letter. 

He told himself that he must have been mistaken 
from beginning to end; that the Queen had never felt 
anything except friendship for him, but a friendship 
far deeper and more sincere than he had realized; 
and he was suddenly immensely grateful to her for ° 
her wish to build up happiness in his:life. But 
then, again, she knew as well as he — or as well as 
he thought he knew —that the Church would not 
easily consent to his union with Beatrix, and as he 
closed his eyes and recalled scenes of which the 
memories were still vivid and clear, the shadow that 
had chilled his heart in Paris rose again between 
him and Eleanor’s face, and he distrusted her, and 
her kiss and her letter, and her motives. Then, too, 
it seemed very strange to him that Beatrix should 
have left her father’s house; for Arnold de Curboil 
had always loved her, and it did not occur to Gil- 
bert that his own mother had made the girl’s life 
intolerable. He was to learn that later, and when 
he knew it, he tasted the last and bitterest dregs of 
all. Nevertheless, he could not reasonably doubt 
the Queen’s word; he was positively certain that 
he should find Beatrix at the French court, and from 
the first he had not really hesitated about leay- 
ing at once. It seemed to be the only possible 


122 VIA CRUCIS 


course, though it was diametrically opposed to all 
the good resolutions which had of late flitted 
through his dreams like summer moths. 

On the next day but one, early in the spring 
morning, Gilbert and his men rode slowly down the 
desolate Via Lata, and under Aurelian’s arch, 
past the gloomy tomb of Augustus on the left, held 
by the Count of Tusculum, and out at last upon the 
rolling Campagna, northward, by the old Flaminian 
Way. 


CHAPTER X . 


JUNE was upon Italy, as a gossamer veil and a 
garland on the brow of a girl bride. The first sweet 
hay was drying in Tuscan valleys; the fig leaves 
were spreading, and shadowing the watery fruit 
that begins to grow upon the crooked twigs before 
the leaves themselves, and which the people call 
“fio-blossoms,’’ because the real figs come later; the 
fresh and silvery olive shoots had shed a snow-flurry 
of small white stars; the yellow holy thorn still 
blossomed in the rough places of the hills, and the 
blending of many wild flowers was like a maiden 
blush on the earth’s soft bosom. 

At early morning Gilbert rode along the crest of a 
low and grassy hill that was still sheltered from the 
sun by the high mountains to eastward, and he drank 
in the cool and scented air as if it had been water 
of paradise, and he a man saved out of death to life 
by the draught. There was much peace in his heart, 
and a still security that he had not felt yet since he 
had seen his father lying dead before him. He knew 
not how it was, but he was suddenly sure that Beatrix 
loved him and had escaped to the court of France in 
the hope of finding him, and was waiting for him 
day by day. And he was also sure that the Church 
would not cut him off from her in the end, let the 

123 


124 VIA CRUCIS 


churchmen say what they would. Was not the Queen 
of France his friend? She would plead his case, and 
the Pope would understand and take away the bar. 
He thought of these things, and he felt his hopes 
rising bright, like the steady sun. 

He reached the end of the crest and drew rein 
before descending, and he looked down into the 
broad valley and the river winding in and out among 
trees, gleaming like silver out there in the sun 
beyond the narrowing shadow, then dark blue, and 
then, in places, as black as ink. The white road, 
broad and dusty, winding on to Florence, followed 
the changing river. Gilbert took his cap from his 
head and felt the coolness of the morning on his fore- 
head and the gentle breath of the early summer in 
his fair hair; and then, sitting there in the deep 
silence, bareheaded, it seemed to him that he was in 
the very holy place of God’s cathedral. 

“The peace of God, which passeth all understand- 
ing,” he repeated softly and almost involuntarily. 

“Now the God of peace be with you all, amen,” 
answered Dunstan. 

But there was a tone in his voice that made Gil- 
bert look at him, and he saw in the man’s face a 
quiet smile, as if something amused him, while the 
black eyes were fixed on a sight far away. Dunstan 
was pointing to what he saw; so Gilbert looked, too, 
and he perceived a gleaming, very far off, that moved 
slowly on the white road beside the shining river. 

“They are expecting a fight to-day,” said Gilbert, 
“for they are in mail and their mule-train is behind 
them.’’ 


VIA CRUCIS 125 


“Shall we turn aside and ride up the mountain, to 
let them pass?” asked Dunstan, who could fight like 
a wildcat, but had also the cat’s instinctive caution. 

“Tt would be a pity not to see the fight,” answered 
Gilbert, and he began to ride forward down the 
descent. : 

The track was worn down to the depth of a man’s 
height by the hoofs of the beasts that-had trodden it 
for ages; and in places it was very narrow, so that 
two laden mules could hardly pass each other. 
Young chestnut shoots of three or four years’ growth 
sprang up in thick green masses from the top of the 
bank on each side, and now and then the branches of 
nut trees almost joined their broad leaves across the 
way, making a deep shade that was cool and smelt 
of fresh mould and green things. A little way down 
the hill a spring of water trickled into a little pool 
hollowed out by travellers, and the water overflowed 
and made thick black mud of the earth churned up 
with last year’s dead leaves. 

Gilbert let his horse stop to drink, and his men 
waited in single file to take their turn. 

“Psst!” The peculiar hiss which Italians make 
to attract attention came sharp and distinct from 
the low growth of the chestnut shoots. 

Gilbert: turned his head quickly in the direction 
of the sound. A swarthy face appeared, framed in a 
close leathern cap on which small rings of rusty iron 
were sewn strongly, but not very regularly. Then 
a long left arm, clad in the same sort of mail, pushed 
the lower boughs aside and made a gesture in the 
direction whence Gilbert had come, which was meant 


126 VIA CRUCIS 


to warn him back —a gesture of the flat hand, held 
across the breast with thumb hidden, just moving a 
little up and down. 

“Why should I go back?” asked Gilbert, in his 
natural voice. 

“Because yes,” answered the dark man, in the 
common Italian idiom, andinalowtone. “ Because 
we are waiting for the Florentines, certain of us of 
Pistoja, and we want no travellers in the way. And 
then — because, if you will not —”’ 

The right arm suddenly appeared, and in the hand 
was a spear, and the act was a threat to run Gilbert 
through, unmailed as he was,and just below his adver- 
sary. But as Gilbert laid his hand upon his sword, 
looking straight at the man’s eye, he very suddenly 
saw a Strange sight; for there was a long arrow stick- 
ing through the head, the point out on one side and the 
feather on the other; and for a moment the man still 
looked at him with eyes wide open. ‘Then, standing 
as he was, his body slowly bent forward upon itself 
as if curling up, and with a crash of steel it rolled 
down the bank into the pool of water, where the 
lance snapped under it. 

For little Alric, the Saxon groom, had quietly 
slipped to the ground and had strung his bow, sus- 
pecting trouble, and had laid an arrow to the string, 
waiting; and little Alric’s aim was very sure; it 
was also the first time that he had shot a man, 
and he came of men who had been bowmen since 
Alfred’s day, and before that, and had killed many, 
for generations, so that it was an instinct with them 
to slay with the bow. 


9 


VIA SRUCIS 127 


“Well done, boy!” cried Gilbert. 

But his horse reared back, as the dead body fell 
splashing into the pool, and Alric quietly unstrung 
his bow again and remounted to be ready. Then 
Gilbert would have ridden on, but Dunstan hindered 
him. i 

“This fellow was but a sentinel,” he said. “A 
little further on you will find these woods filled 
with armed men waiting to surprise the riders we 
saw from above. Surely, I will die with you, sir; 
but we need not die like rats in a corn-bin. Let us 
ride up a little way again, and then skirt the woods 
and take the road where it joins the river, down in 
the valley.” 

“And warn those men of Florence that they are 
riding into an ambush,” added Gilbert, turning his 
horse. 

So they rode up the hill; and scarcely were they 
out of sight of the spring when a very old woman 
and a ragged little boy crept out of the bushes, with 
knives, and began to rob the dead man of his rusty 
mail and his poor clothes. 

Gilbert reached the road a long stone’s-throw 
beyond the last chestnut shoots, and galloped for- 
ward to meet the advancing knights and men-at-arms. 
He drew rein suddenly, a dozen lengths before them, 
and threw up his open right hand. They were riding 
leisurely, but all in mail, some having surcoats with 
devices embroidered thereon, and most of them with 
their heads uncovered, their steel caps and hoods of 
mail hanging at their saddle-bows. 


“Sirs,” cried Gilbert, in a loud, clear voice, ‘ 


‘you 


128 VIA CRUCIS 


ride to an ambush! The chestnut woods are full of 
the men of Pistoja.”’ 

A knight who rode in front, and was the leader, 
came close to Gilbert. He was a man not young, 
with a dark, smooth face, as finely cut as a relief 
carved upon a shell, and his hair was short and iron- 
grey. 

Gilbert told him what had happened in the woods, 
and the elderly knight listened quietly and thought- 
fully, while examining Gilbert’s face with half- 
unconscious keenness. 

“If you please,” said the young man, “I will 
lead you by the way I have ridden, and you may 
enter the bushes from above, and fight at better 
advantage.” 

But the Florentine smiled at such simple tactics. 
To feel the breeze, he held up his right hand, which 
issued from a slit in the wrist of his mail, so that 
the iron mitten hung loose; and the wind was blow- 
ing toward the woods. He called to his squire. 

“Take ten men, light torches, and set fire to 
those young trees.” 

The men got a cook’s earthenware pot of coals, 
fed all day long with charcoal on the march, lest 
there should be no fire for the camp at night; and 
they lit torches of pitched hemp-rope, and presently 
there was a great smoke and a crackling of green 
branches. But the leader of the Florentines put on 
his steel cap and drew the mail hood down over his 
shoulders, while all the others who were bareheaded 
did the same. 

“Sir,” said the knight to Gilbert, “you should 


VIA CRUCIS 129 


withdraw behind us, now that you have done us this 
great service. For presently there will be fighting 
here, and you are unmailed.” 

“The weather is overwarm for an iron coat,” an- 
swered Gilbert, witha laugh. “But if I shall not 
trespass upon the courtesies of your.country by thrust- 
ing my company upon you, I will ride at your left 
hand, that you may the more safely slay with your 
right.” 

“Sir,” answered the other, “you are a very cour- 
teous man. Of what country may you be?” 

* An Englishman, sir, and of Norman blood.” He 
also told his name. 

“Gino Buondelmonte, at your service,’ 
the knight, naming himself. 

“Nay, sir,” laughed Gilbert, “a knight cannot 
serve a simple squire!” 

“It is never shame for gentle-born to serve gentle- 
born,” answered the other. 

But now the smoke was driving the men of Pistoja 
out of the wood, and the hillside down which Gilbert 
had ridden was covered with men in mail, on horse- 
back, and with footmen in leather and such poor 
armour as had been worn by the dead sentinel. 
Buondelmonte thrust his feet home in his wide stir- 
rups, settled himself in the saddle, shortened his 
reins, and drew his sword, while watching all the 
time the movements of the enemy. Gilbert sat 
quietly watching them, too. As yet he had never 
ridden at a foe, though he had fought on foot, and 
he unconsciously smiled with pleasure at the pros- 
pect, trying to pick out the man likely to fall by 


K 


? 


replied 


130 VIA CRUCIS 


his sword. In England, or in France, he would 
certainly have put on the good mail which was 
packed on the sumpter mule’s back; but here in 
the sweet Italian spring, in the morning breeze full 
of the scent of wild flowers, and the humming of 
bees and the twittering of little birds, even fighting 
had a look of harmless play, and he felt as secure in 
his cloth tunic as if it had been of woven steel. 

The position of the Florentines was the better, for 
they had the broad homeward road behind them, in 
case of defeat; but the men of Pistoja, driven from 
the woods by the thick smoke and the burning of the 
undergrowth, were obliged to scramble down a de- 
scent so steep that many of them were forced to dis- 
mount, and they then found themselves huddled 
together in a narrow strip of irregular meadow 
between the road and the foot of the stony hill. 
Buondelmonte saw his advantage. His sword shot 
up at arm’s length over his head, and his high, clear 
voice rang out in a single word of command. 

In a moment the peace of nature was rent by the 
scream of war. Hoofs thundered, swords flashed, 
men yelled, and arrows shot through the great cloud 
of dust that rose suddenly as from an explosion. In 
the front of the charge the Italian and the Norman 
rode side by side, the inscrutable black eyes and the 
calm olive features beside the Norman’s terrible 
young figure, with its white glowing face and fair 
hair streaming on the wind, and wide, deep eyes like 
blue steel, and the quivering nostrils of the man 
born for fight. 

Short was the strife and sharp, as the Florentines 


VIA CRUCIS 181 


spread to right and left of their leader and pressed 
the foe back against the steep hill in the narrow 
meadow. ‘Then Buondelmonte thrust out straight 
and sure, in the Italian fashion, and once the mortal 
wound was in the face, and once in the throat, and 
many times men felt it in their- breasts through 
mail and gambison and bone. But Gilbert’s great 
strokes flashed like lightnings from his pliant wrist, 
and behind the wrist was the Norman arm, and 
behind the arm the relentless pale face and the even 
lips, that just tightened upon each other as the death- 
blows went out, one by one, each to its place in a life. 
The Italian destroyed men skilfully and quickly, 
yet as if it were distasteful to him. The Norman 
slew like a bright destroying angel, breathing the 
swift and silent wrath of God upon mankind. 

Blow upon blow, with ciash of steel, thrust after 
thrust as the darting of serpents, till the dead lay in 
heaps, and the horses’ hoofs churned blood and grass 
to a green-red foam, till the sword-arm waited high 
and then sank slowly, because there was none for the 
sword to strike, and the point rested among the close- 
sewn rings of mail on Buondelmonte’s foot, and the 
thin streams of blood trickled quietly down the 
dimmed blade. 

“Sir,” said Buondelmonte, courteously, “you are 
a marvellous fine swordsman, though you fence not 
in our manner, with the point. I am your debtor 
for the safety of my left side. Are you hurt, sir?” 

“Not I!” laughed Gilbert, wiping his broad blade 
slowly on his horse’s mane for lack of anything 
better. 


382 VIA CRUCIS 


Then Buondelmonte looked at him again and 
smiled. 

“You have won yourself a fair crest,’”’ he laughed, 
as he glanced at Gilbert’s cap. 

“A crest?” Gilbert put up his hand, and uttered 
an exclamation as it struck against a sharp steel point. 

A half-spent arrow had pierced the top of his 
red cloth cap and was sticking there, like a woman’s. 
long hairpin. He thought that if it had struck 
two inches lower, with a little more force, he should 
have looked as the man in the woods did, whom 
Alric had killed. He plucked the shaft from the 
stiff cloth with some difficulty, and, barely glancing 
at it, tossed it away. But little Alric, who had 
left the guide to take care of the mules and had fol- 
lowed the charge on foot, picked up the arrow, 
marked it with his knife and put it carefully into 
his leathern quiver, which he filled with arrows he 
picked up on the grass till it would hold no more. 
Dunstan, who had ridden in the press with the 
rest, was looking among the dead for a good sword 
to take, his own being broken. 
“Florence owes you a debt, sir,” said Buondel- 
monte, an hour later, when they were riding back 
from the pursuit. “But for your warning, many of 
us would be lying dead in that wood. I pray you, 
take from the spoil, such as it is, whatsoever you 
desire. And if it please you to stay with us, the 
archbishop shall make a knight of you, for you have 
won knighthood to-day.” 

But Gilbert shook his head, smiling gravely. 

“Praised be God, I need nothing, sir,” he an- 


VIA CRUCIS 133% 


swered. “J thank you for your courteous hospitality, 
but I cannot stay, seeing that I ride upon a lady’s 
bidding. And as fora debt, sir, Florence has paid 
hers largely in giving me your acquaintance.” 

“My friendship, sir,” replied Buondelmonte, not 
yielding in compliment to the knightly youth. 

So they broke bread together and drank a draught, 
and parted. But Buondelmonte gave Dunstan a 
small purse of gold and a handful of silver to little 
Alric and the muleteer, and Gilbert rode away with 
his men, and all were well pleased. 

Yet when he was alone in the evening, a sadness 
and a horror of what he had done came over him; for 
he had taken life that day as a man mows down grass, 
in swaths, and he could not tell why he had slain, 
for he knew not the men who fought on the two sides, 
nor their difference. He had charged because he saw 
men charging, he had struck for the love of strife, and 
had killed because it was of his nature to kill. But 
now that the blood was shed, and the sun which had 
risen on life was going down on death, Gilbert 
Warde was sorry for what he had done, and his brave 
charge seemed but a senseless deed of slaughter, for 
which he should rather have done penance than 
received knighthood. 

“T am no better than a wild beast,” he said, 
when he had told Dunstan what he felt. “Go and 
find out a priest to pray for those I have killed 
to-day.” 

He covered his brow with his hand as he sat at 
the supper table. 

“T go,” answered the young man. “Yet it is a 


184 VIA CRUCIS 


pleasant sight to see the lion weeping for pity over 
the calf he has killed.” 

“The lion kills that he may eat and himself live,” 
answered Gilbert. “ And the men who fought to-day 
fought for a cause. But I smote for the wanton love 
of smiting that is in all our blood, and I am ashamed. 
Bid the priest pray for me also.” 


CHAPTER XI . 


THE court of France was at Vézelay ~--the King, the 
Queen, the great vassals of the kingdom at the King’s 
command, and those of Aquitaine and Guienne 
and Poitou in the train of Eleanor, whose state out- 
shone and dwarfed her husband’s. And there was 
Bernard, the holy man of Clairvaux, to preach the 
Cross, where old men remembered the voice of 
Peter the Hermit and the shout of men now long 
dead in far Palestine, crying, “God’s will! God’s 
will!”’ 

Because the church of Saint Mary Magdalen was 
too small to hold the multitude, they were gathered 
together in a wide grassy hollow without the little 
town, and there a raised floor of wood had been built 
for the King and Queen and the great nobles; but 
the rest of the knights and Eleanor’s three hundred 
ladies stood upon the grass-grown slope, and were 
crowded together by the vast concourse of the people. 

The sun was already behind the hill, and the hot 
July air had cooled a little; but it was still hot, and 
the breathing of the multitude could be heard in the 
silence. Gilbert had come but just in time; he had 
left his men to find him a lodging if they could, 
and now he pressed forward as well as he might, 
to see and hear, but most of all to find out, if 

135 


136 VIA CRUGCIS 


he could, the face of Beatrix among the three 
hundred. 

There sat the Queen, in scarlet and gold, wearing 
the crown upon her russet hair, and the King in gold 
and blue beside her, square, grave, and pale as ever; 
and when Gilbert had searched the three hundred fair 
young faces in vain, his eyes came back to the most 
beautiful woman in the world. He saw that she was 
fairer than even his memory of her, and he felt pride 
that she should call herself his friend. 

Then suddenly there was a stir among the knights 
behind the throne, and though they were standing 
closely, shoulder to shoulder, and pressed one against 
another, yet they divided to let the preacher go 
through. He came alone, with quiet eyes, thanking 
the knights to right and left because they made way 
for him, and he passed between them quickly lke a 
white shadow. So thought pierces matter and the 
spiritual being penetrates the terrestrial being and 
is unchanged. 

But when Bernard had ascended the white wooden 
stage and stood near the King and Queen, then the 
hushed stillness became a dead silence, and the eyes 
of all that multitude were fastened upon his face and 
form, as each could see him. For a moment every 
man held his breath as if an angel had come down 
from heaven, bringing on his lips the word of God 
and in his look the evidence of eternal light. He was 
the holy man of the world even while he lived, and 
neither before him nor after him, since the days of 
the Apostles, has any one person so stood in the eyes 
of all mankind. 


VIA CRUCIS 137 


The gentle voice began to speak, without effort 
to be heard, yet as distinct and clear as if it spoke 
to each several ear, pleading for the cause of the 
Cross of Christ, and for the suffering men who 
held the holy places in the East with ever-weaken- 
ing hands, but still with undaunted, desperate 
courage. 

“Is there any man among you who has loved his 
mother, and has received her dying breath with her 
last blessing, and has laid her to rest in peace, ina 
place holy to him for her sake, and who would 
suffer that her grave should be defiled and defaced 
by her enemies, so long as he, her son, has in his body 
blood of hers to shed? Is there any among you who 
would not fight, while he had breath, to save his 
father’s dead bones from dishonour? Do you not 
daily boast that you will lay down your lives in a 
quarrel for the good name of your ladies, as you 
would for your own daughters’ fair fame and your 
own wives’ faithfulness ? 

* And now, I say, is not the Church of God your 
mother, and are not her temples your most holy 
places? You boast that you are ready to die for an 
honourable cause: yet Christ gave His life for us, 
not because of our honour, but because of our dis- 
honour, and our sins which are many and grievous; 
and having atoned for us in His Holy Passion, He was 
laid at rest after the manner of men. And the place 
where He rested is sacred, for the Lord fom Heaven 
Jay therein when He had washed away our iniquity 
with His holy blood, when He had healed us by His 
stripes, when He had given His life that we might 


138 VIA CRUCIS 


live, when He had endured the bondage of this dying 
flesh that we might be raised undying in the spirit, 
by Him, and through Him, and in Him. 

“Shall the earth that drank that blood be as other 
earth ? Shall the place that echoed the seven words 
of agony be as other places? Is the tomb where God 
rested Him of His crucified manhood to be given up 
to forgetfulness and defilement? Or are we sinless, 
that we need not even the memory of the sacrifice, 
and so pure that we need no purification? I 
would that we were. The world is evil, the hour 
is late, the Judge is at hand, and we are lacking 
of good and eaten of evil, so that there is no whole 
part in us. 

“And yet we move not to save ourselves, though 
Christ gave His life to save us if we would stir 
ever so little, if we would but stretch out our hands 
to the hand that waits for ours. He bids us not be 
crucified, as He was for us. He bids us only take up 
our cross and follow Him, as He took it up Himself, 
and bore it to the place of death.” 

Thus Bernard began to speak, gently at first, as 
one who rouses a friend from sleep to warn him of 
danger, and fears to be rough, yet cannot be silent; 
but by and by, in the breathing stillness, the sweet 
voice was strengthened and rang like the first clarion 
at dawn on the day of battle, far off and clear, heart- 
stirring and true. And with the rising tone came 
also the stronger word, and at last the spirit that 
moves more taan word or voice. 

“Lay the Cross to your hearts as you wear it on 
your breasts. Bear it with you on the long day 


VIA CRUCIS 139 


marches, and in the watches of night bow before it 
inwardly, and pray that you may have grace to bear 
it to the end. So shall your footsteps profit you, 
and your way shall be the way of the Cross, till you 
stand in the holy place. But if so be that God 
ask blood of you, blessed shall they be among you 
who shall give life freely, to die for the Cross 
of our Lord Christ; and they shall*stand in the 
place that is holy indeed, before the Throne of 
God. 

“Yet beware of one thing. I would not that you 
should go out to fight for the Sepulchre as some of 
our fathers did, boasting in the Cross, yet in heart 
each for his own soul and none for the glory of 
Christ, counting the weariness, and the hurts, and 
the drops of blood as a sure reckoning to be repaid 
to you in heaven, as if you had lent God a piece of 
money which He must pay again. The Lord J esus 
gave not His life at an account, nor His blood at 
usury; He counted not the pain, nor was His suffer- 
ing set down in a book; but He gave all freely, of 
His love for men. Shall men therefore ask of God 
a return, saying: ‘ We have given Thee so much, as 
it were a wound, or it may be a life, or else a prayer, 
and a day of fasting, see that Thou pay us what is 
just’? That were not giving to God what is a man’s 
own; it were rather lending or selling to God what 
is His. See that you do not thus, but if you have 
anything to give, let it be given freely; or else 
give not at all, for it is written that from him that 
hath not faith shall be taken even such things as 
he hath. 


140 VIA CRUCIS 


“But if you take the Cross, and arm yourselves 
to fight for it, and go your way to Palestine to help 
your brethren in their sore need, go not for your- 
selves, suffer not for yourselves, fight not for your- 
selves. For as God is greater than man, so is the 
glory of God greater than the glory of self and more 
worthy that you should die for it. Think not 
therefore of earning a reward, but of honouring 
the Lord Christ in the holy place where He died 
for you. 

“March not as it were to do penance for your 
old sins, hoping for forgiveness, as a trader that 
brings merchandise looks for a profit! Strike 
not as slaves, who fight lest they be beaten with 
rods, neither as men in fear of everlasting fire 
and the torments of hell! Neither go out as 
thieves, seeking to steal the earth for yourselves, 
and striving not with the unbeliever, but with 
the rich man for his riches, and with the great 
man for his possessions! I say, go forth and do 
battle for God’s sake and His glory! March ye 
for Christ and to bring the people to Him out of 
darkness! Take with you the Cross to set it in the 
hearts of men, and the seed of the tree of life to 
plant among desolate nations! 

“Ye kings, that are anointed leaders, lead ye the 
armies of Heaven! Ye knights, that are sworn to 
honour, draw your unsullied swords for the honour 
of God! Men and youths, that bear arms by alle- 
giance, be ye soldiers of Christ and allegiant to the 
Cross! Be ye all first for honour, first for France, 
first for God Most High !” 





poe 


“CROSSES! GIVE US CROSSES 





VIA CRUCIS 141 


With those words the white-sleeved arm was high 
above his head, holding up the plain white wooden 
cross, and there was silence for a moment. But 
when the people saw that he had finished speaking, 
they drew deep breath, and the air thundered with 
the great cry that came. 4 

“Crosses! Give us crosses!” 

And they pressed upon one another to get nearer. 
The King had risen, and the Queen with him, and 
he came forward and knelt at Bernard’s feet, with 
dent head and folded hands. The great abbot took 
pieces of scarlet cloth from a page who held them 
teady in a basket, and he fastened them upon the 
King’s left shoulder and then raised his right 
hand in blessing. The people were silent again 
and looked on, and many thought that the King, 
‘n his great mantle and high crown, was like 
a bishop wearing a cope, for he had a church- 
man’s face. He rose to his feet and stepped back 
but he was scarcely risen when the Queen stood 
in his place, radiant, the evening light in her 
hair. 

“T also will go,” she said in a clear, imperious 
voice. “Give me the Cross !” 

She knelt and placed her hands together, as in 
prayer, and there was a fair light in her eyes as she 
looked up to Bernard’s face. He hesitated 2 moment, 
then took a cross and laid it upon her mantle, and 
she smiled. 

A great cry went up from all the knights, and then 
from the people, strong and triumphant, echoing, 
falling, and rising again. 


142 VIA CRUCIS 


“God save the Queen! —the Queen that wears 
the Cross!”’ 

And suddenly every man held up his sword by the 
sheath, and the great cross-hilts made forests of 
crosses in the glowing air. But the Queen’s three 
hundred ladies pressed upon her. 

“We will not leave you!” they cried. “We will 
take the Cross with you!” 

And they thronged upon Bernard like a flight 
of doves, holding out white hands for crosses, and 
more crosses, while he gave as best he could. 
Also the people and the knights began to tear 
pieces from their own garments to make the sign, 
and one great lord took his white mantle and 
made strips of the fine cloth for his liege vassals 
and his squires and men; but another took Ber- 
nard’s white cape from his shoulders and with a 
sharp dagger made many little crosses of it for 
the people, who kissed them as holy things when 
they received them. 

In the throng, Gilbert pressed forward to the edge 
of the platform where the Queen was standing, for 
he was strong and tall. He touched her mantle 
softly, and she looked down, and he saw how her face 
turned white and gentle when she knew him. Being 
too far below her to take her hand, he took the rich 
border of her cloak and kissed it, whereat she smiled; 
but she made a sign to him that he should not try to 
talk with her in the confusion. Then looking down 
again, she saw that he had yet no cross. She took 
one from one of her ladies, and, bending low, tried 
to fasten it upon his shoulder. 


VIA CRUCIS 1438 


“T thank your Grace,” said Gilbert, very grate- 
fully. “Is Beatrix here?” he asked in a low 
tone. 

But, to his wonder, the Queen’s brow darkened, 
and her eyes were suddenly hard; she almost 
dropped the cross in her hurry to stand upright, 
nor would she again turn her eyes to look at 
him. 


CHAPTER XII 


In the late dusk of summer Bernard went his way 
from the place where he had preached, to the presby- 
tery of Saint Mary Magdalen, where he was to lodge 
that night. The King and Queen walked beside 
him, their horses led after them by grooms in the 
royal liveries of white and gold; and ali the long 
procession of knights and nobles, priests and laymen, 
gentlefolk and churls, men, women, and children, 
streamed in a motley procession up the road to the 
village. Asthey went, the King talked gravely with 
the holy man, interlarding and lining his sententious 
speeches with copious though not always correct 
quotations from the Vulgate. On Bernard’s other 
side Eleanor walked with head erect, one hand upon 
her belt, one hanging down, her brows slightly drawn 
together, her face clear white, her burning eyes fixed 
angrily upon the bright vision cast by her thoughts 
into the empty air before her. 

She had used the only means, and the strongest 
means, of bringing Gilbert back to France; she had 
foredreamt his coming, she had foreknown that 
from the first he would ask for Beatrix; but she had 
neither known nor dreamt of what she should feel 
when he, standing at her feet below the platform, 
looked up to her offering eyes with a hunger in his 
face which she could not satisfy, and a desire which 

144 


VIA CRUCIS 145 


she could not fulfil. His very asking for the other 
had been a refusal of herself, and to be refused is a 
shame which no loving woman will accept while love 
is living, and an insult which no strong woman for- 
gives when love is dead. Q 

But neither the King nor the abbot heeded her as 
they walked along, talking in Latin mixed with Nor- 
man French. The monk, not tall, slender, spiritualized 
even in the remnant of his flesh, the incarnation of 
believing thought and word, the exposition of mat- 
ter’s servitude to mind, was the master; the King, 
heavy, strong, pale, obedient, was the pupil, proving 
the existence of the greater force by his blind sub- 
mission to itslaws. Beside them the Queen imaged the 
independence of youthful life, believing without realiz- 
ing, strong with blood, rich with colour, fearing regret 
more than remorse, thoughtlessly cruel and cruelly 
thoughtless, yet able to be very generous and brave. 

The bell of Saint Mary’s tolled three strokes, then 
four, then five, then one, thirteen in all, and then 
‘ rang backward for the ending day. ‘The sun had 
set a full half-hour and the dusk had almost drunk 
the dregs of the red west. Bernard stood still, bare- 
headed in the way, with folded hands, and began 
the Angelus Domini; the King from habit raised 
his hand to take his cap from his head, and touched , 
the golden crown instead. Instantly a little colour 
of embarrassment rose in his pale cheeks, and he 
stumbled over the familiar response as he clasped 
his hands with downcast eyes, for in some ways he 
was a timid man. The Queen stood still and spoke 
the words also, but neither the attitude of her head 

i 


146 VIA CRUCIS 


nor the look in her eyes was changed, nor did she 
take her hand from her belt to clasp it upon the 
other. The air was very soft and warm, there was 
the musical, low sound of many voices speaking in 
the monotone of prayer, and now and then, on whir- 
ring wings, a droning beetle hummed his way from 
one field to another, just above the heads of the 
great multitude. 

The prayer said, they all moved onward, past 
the first houses of the village and past the open 
smithy with its shelter of twisted chestnut boughs, 
beneath which the horses were protected from the 
sun while they were being shod. But the smith had 
not been to the preaching, because Alric, the Saxon 
groom, had brought him Gilbert’s horse to shoe just 
when he was going, and had forced him to stay and 
do the work with the threat of an evil spell learned 
in Italy. And now, peering through the twilight, 
he stood watching the long procession as it came up 
to his door. He was a dark man, with red eyes and 
hairy hands, and his shirt was open on his chest 
almost to his belt. He stood quite still at first, 
gazing on Bernard’s face, that was luminous in the 
dusk; but as he looked, something moved him that 
he could not understand, and he came forward in 
his leathern apron and his blackened hose, and knelt 
at the abbot’s feet. 

‘¢ Give me also the Cross,” he cried. 

“T give thee the sign, my son,” answered Ber- 
nard, raising his hand to bless the hairy man. ‘The 
crosses we had are all given. But thou shalt have 
one to-morrow.” 


VIA CRUCIS 147 


But as the smith looked up to the inspired face 
the light came into his own eyes, and something he 
could not see took hold of him suddenly and hard. 

“Nay, my lord,’ he answered, “I will have it 
to-day and of my own.” 

Then he sprang up and ran to his smithy, and 
came back holding in his hand a bar of iron that 
had been heating in the coals to make a shoe. The 
end of it was glowing red. 

‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
of the Holy Ghost !” he cried in a loud voice. 

And as he spoke the words, he had laid the red-hot 
point to his breast and had drawn it down and cross- 
wise ; and a little line of thin, white smoke followed 
the hissing iron along the seared flesh. He threw 
the bar down upon the threshold of his door and 
came to join the throng, the strange smile on his 
rough face and the light of another world in his fire- 
reddened eyes. But though the multitude sent up 
a great cry of praise and wonder, yet Bernard shook 
his head gravely and walked on, for he loved not any 
madness, not even a madness for good deeds, and 
the light by which he saw was as steady and clear 
and true as a life-long day. 

Moreover, even while he had been speaking he had 
felt that fanatic deeds were not far off, and a deep 
sadness had fallen upon him, because he knew that 
true belief is the fulness of true wisdom and by no 
means akin to any folly. 

Therefore, when he was alone that night, he was 
very heavy-hearted, and sat a long time by his square 
oak table in the light of the three-cornered brazen 


148 VIA CRUCIS 


lamp which stood at his elbow. The principal 
chamber of the presbytery was cross-vaulted and 
divided into two by a low round arch supported on 
slender double columns with capitals fantastically 
carved. The smaller portion of the room beyond 
the arch made an alcove for sleeping, which could 
be completely shut off by a heavy curtain; the 
larger part was paved with stone, and in one corner 
a low wooden platform, on which stood a heavy table 
before a carved bench fastened to the wall, was set 
apart for writing and study. On the table, besides 
the lamp, there stood a reading-desk, and above the 
bench a strong shelf carried a number of objects, 
including several large bottles of ink, a pot of glue 
for fastening leaves of parchment, and two or three 
jars of blue and white earthenware. On nails 
there hung a brush of half dried broom, a broad- 
brimmed rush hat, and a blackened rosary. On the 
other side of the table, and by the window, there was 
a small holy-water basin with a little besom. On 
the walls were hung pieces of coarse linen roughly 
embroidered with small crosses flory, worked in dark 
red silk. The vault was blank and white, and 
rushes were strewn on the stone pavement. In the 
deep embrasures of the windows there were dark 
window-seats worn black with age. 

The abbot had begun a letter, but the pen lay 
beside the unfinished writing, his elbow rested on 
the parchment, and he shaded his eyes from the 
light. The brilliancy was gone from his face and 
was succeeded by an almost earthy pallor, while 
his attitude expressed both lassitude and dejection. 


VIA CRUCIS 149 


He had done what had been required of him, he had 
fired the passion of the hour, and one hour had shown 
him how completely it was to be beyond his control. 
He remembered how Peter the Hermit had led the vast 
advance-guard of the First Crusade to sudden and 
miserable destruction before the main force could be 
organized ; he had seen enough on that afternoon 
to prove to him that the air was laden with such 
disaster, of which the responsibility would surely 
be heaped upon himself. He regretted not the 
thoughts he had preached, but the fact of having 
yielded to preach at all to such men and at such a 
time. He had begun to set forth all this and much 
more in a letter to Pope Eugenius, but before he had 
written a dozen lines the pen had fallen from his hand, 
and he had begun to reflect upon the impossibility 
of stemming the tide since it had turned to flood. 

A soft step sounded in the outer hall beyond the 
curtained doorway, but Bernard, absorbed in his 
meditations, heard nothing. A _ jewelled hand 
pushed aside the thick folds of the hanging, and 
the most beautiful eyes in the world gazed curiously 
upon the unheeding abbot. 

“ Are you alone?” asked the Queen’s voice. 

Without waiting for an answer she came forward 
into the room and paused beside the low platform, 
laying one hand upon the table in a gesture half 
friendly, half deprecating, as if she still feared 
that she had disturbed the holy man. His trans- 
parent fingers fell from his eyes, and he looked up 
to her, hardly realizing who she was, and quite 
unable to guess why she had come. A dark brown 


150 VIA CRUCIS 


mantle completely covered her gown, and only a 
little of her scarlet sleeve showed as her hand lay 
on the table. Her russet-golden hair hung in 
broad waves and lightened in the rays of the oil 
lamp. Her eyes, that looked at Bernard intently 
and inquiringly, were the eyes of old Duke William, 
whom the Abbot of Clairvaux had brought to con- 
fession and penance long ago, and who had gone from 
the altar of his grand-daughter’s marriage straight 
to solitary hermitage and lonely death in the Spanish 
hills; they were eyes in which all thoughts were 
fearless and in which tenderness was beautiful, but 
in which kindness was often out of sight behind 
the blaze of vitality and the burning love of life 
that proceeded from her and surrounded her as an 
atmosphere of her own. 

* You do not welcome me,” she said, looking into 
his face. “ Are you too deeply occupied to talk with 
me awhile? It is long since we have met.” 

Bernard passed his hand over his eyes as if to 
brush away some material veil. 

“J am at your Grace’s service,” he said gently, and 
he rose from his seat as he spoke. 

*“‘T ask no service for myself,” she answered, setting 
her foot upon the platform and coming to his side. 
“Yet I ask something which you may do for 
others.” 

Bernard hesitated, and then looked down. 

“Silver and gold have I none,” he said, quoting, 
“but such as I have I give unto thee.” 

“T have both gold and silver, and lands, and a 
crown,’ answered the Queen, smiling carelessly, and 


VIA CRUCIS 151 


yet in earnest. “I lack faith. And so, though my 
people have swords and armour, and have taken 
upon them the Cross to succour their brethren in the 
Holy Land, yet they have no leader.” 

“They have the King, your husband,” answered 
Bernard, gravely. 

Eleanor laughed, not very cruelly, nor altogether 
scornfully, but as a man might laugh who was mis- 
understood, and to whom, asking for his sword, a 
servant should bring his pen. 

“The King!” she cried, still smiling. ‘The 
King! Are you so great in mind and so poor in 
sense as to think that he could lead men and win? 
The King is no leader. He is your acolyte — I like 
to see him swinging a censer in time to your prayers 
and flattening his flat face upon the altar-steps beati- 
fied by your footsteps !” 

The Queen laughed, for she had moods in which 
she feared neither God, nor saint, nor man. But 
Bernard looked grave at first, then hurt, and then 
there was pity in his eyes. He pointed to the 
window-seat beside the table, and he himself sat 
down upon his carved bench. Eleanor, being seated, 
rested her elbows on the table, clasped her beautiful 
hands together, and slowly rubbed her cheek against 
them, meditating what she should say next. She 
had had no fixed purpose in coming to the abbot’s 
lodging, but she had always liked to talk with him 
when he was at leisure and to see the look of puzzled 
and pained surprise that came into his face when she 
said anything more than usually shocking to his 
delicate sensibilities. With impulses of tremendous 


152 VIA CRUCIS 


force, there was at the root of her character a youth- 
ful and almost childlike indifference to consequences. 

“ You misjudge your husband,” said the abbot, at 
last, drumming on the table nervously and absently 
with the tips of his white fingers. ‘They who do 
their own will only are quick to condemn those who 
hope to accomplish the will of Heaven.” 

“Tf you regard the King as the instrument of 
Divine Providence,” answered Eleanor, with curling 
lip, “there is nothing to be said. Providence, for 
instance, was angered with the people of Vitry. 
Providence selected the King of France to be the 
representative of its wrath. The King, obedient as 
ever, set fire to the church, and burned several priests 
and two thousand more or less innocent persons at 
their prayers. Nothing could be better. Providence 
was appeased —” 

“ Hush, Madam!” exclaimed Bernard, lifting a 
thin hand in deprecation. ‘That was the devil’s 
work.” 

“You told me that I was condemning one who is 
accomplishing the will of Heaven.” 

“In leading the Crusade, yes —”’ 

“Then my husband works for both parties. To- 
day he serves God ; to-morrow he serves Mammon.” 
Eleanor raised her finely pencilled eyebrows. “TI be- 
leve there is a parable that teaches us what is to 
become of those that serve two masters.” 

‘“‘ It apples to those who try to serve them at the 
same time,” answered the abbot, meeting her con- 
temptuous look with the quiet boldness of a man 
sure of power. ‘ You know as well as I that the 


WIA CRUCIS 153 


King took oath to lead a Crusade out of repentance 
for what he did at Vitry.” 

“A bargain, then, of the very kind against which 
you preached to-day.” The Queen still smiled, but 
less scornfully, for she fancied herself as good as 
Bernard in an argument. 

“It is a very easy thing to fence with words,” 
Bernard said. ‘It is one thing to argue, it is quite 
another to convince your hearers.” 

“J do not desire to convince you of anything,” 
answered Eleanor, with a little laugh. “I would 
rather be convinced.” 

She looked at him a moment and then turned 
away with a weary little sigh of discontent. 

“Was it without conviction that you took the 
Cross from my hands to-day?” asked Bernard, sadly. 

“It was in the hope of conviction.” 

Bernard understood. Before him, within reach of 
his hand, that great problem was present which, of all 
others, Paganism most easily and clearly solved, but 
with which Christianity grapples at a disadvantage, 
finding its foothold narrow, and its danger constant 
and great. It is the problem of the conversion of 
great and vital natures, brave, gifted and sure of self, 
to the condition of the humble and poor in spirit. It 
is easy to convince the cripple that peace is among 
the virtues; the sick man and the weak are soon 
persuaded that the world is a sensuous illusion of 
Satan, in which the pure and perfect have no part 
nor share ; it is another, a greater and a*harder mat- 
ter, to prove the strong man a sinner by his strength, 
and to make woman’s passion ridiculous in com- 


154 VIA CRUCIS 


parison of heaven. The clear flame of the spirit 
burns ill under the breath of this dying body, and 
for the fleeting touch of a loving hand the majesty 
of God is darkened in a man’s heart. 

Bernard saw before him the incarnate strength 
and youth and beauty of her from whom a line of 
kings was to descend, and in whom were all the 
greatest and least qualities, virtues and failings of 
her unborn children—the Lion Heart of Richard, 
the heartless selfishness of John, the second Edward’s 
grasping hold, Henry the Third’s broad justice and 
wisdom; the doubt of one, the decision of another, 
the passions of them all in one, coursing in the blood 
of a young and kingly race. 

“ You wish not to convince others, but to be con- 
vinced,” Bernard said, “and yet it is not in your 
nature to yield yourself to any conviction. What 
would you of me? I can preach to them that will 
hear me, not to those that come to watch me and to 
smile at my sayings as if I were a player in a booth 
at a fair. Why do you come here to-night? Can I 
give you faith as a salve, wherewith to anoint your 
blind eyes? Can I furnish you the girdle of honesty 
for the virtue you have not? Shall I promise re- 
pentance for you to God, while you smile on your 
next lover? Why have you sought me out?” 

“Tf I had known that you had no leisure, and the 
Church no room for any but the altogether perfect, 
I would not have come.” 

She leaned back in the window-seat and folded her 
arms, drawing the thin dark stuff of her cloak into 
severe straight lines and shadows, in vivid contrast 


VIA CRUCIS 155 


with the radiant beauty of her face. Her straight 
and clear-cut brows lowered over her deep eyes, and 
her lips were as hard as polished coral. 

Bernard looked at her again long and earnestly, 
understanding in part, and in part guessing, that she 
had suffered a secret disappointment.on that day and 
had come to him rather in the hope of some kind of 
mental excitement than with any idea of obtaining 
consolation. To him, filled as he was with the lofty. 
thoughts inspired by the mission thrust upon him, 
there was something horrible in the woman’s frivolity 
—or cynicism. To him the Cross meant the Passion 
of Christ, the shedding of God’s blood, the Redemp- 
tion of mankind. To her it was a badge, an orna- 
ment, the excuse for a luxurious pilgrimage of fair 
women living delicately in silken tents, and clothed 
in fine garments of a fanciful fashion. The contrast 
was too strong, too painful. Eleanor and her girl 
knights would be too wholly out of place, with their 
fancies and their whims, in an army of devoted men 
fighting for a faith, for a faith’s high principle as 
between race and race, and for all which that faith 
had made sacred in its most holy places. It was 
too much. In profoundest disappointment and sad- 
ness Bernard’s head sank upon his breast, and he 
raised his hands a little, to let them fall again upon 
his knees, as if he were almost ready to give up the 
struggle. 

Eleanor felt the wicked little thrill of triumph in 
his apparent despair which compensates schoolboys 
for unimaginable labour in mischief, when they at 
last succeed in hurting the feelings of a long-suffer- 


156 VIA CRUCIS 


ing teacher. There had been nothing but an almost 
childish desire to tease at the root of all that she had 
said; for before all things she was young and gay, 
and her surroundings tended in every way to repress 
both gayety and youth. 

“You must not take everything I say in earnest,” 
she said suddenly, with a laugh that jarred on the 
delicate nerves of the overwrought man. 

He turned his head from her as if the sight 
of her face would have been disagreeable just 
then. 

“ Jest with life if you can,” he said. “Jest with 
death if you are brave enough; yet at least be ear- 
nest in this great matter. If you are fixed in pur- 
pose to go with the King, you and your ladies, then 
go with the purpose to do good, to bind up men’s 
wounds, to tend the sick, to cheer the weak, and by 
your presence to make the coward ashamed.” 

“And why not to fight?” asked the Queen, the 
light of an untried emotion brightening in her eyes. 
“Do you think I cannot bear the weight of mail, or 
sit a horse, or handle a sword as well as many a boy 
of twenty who will be there in the thick of battle? 
And if I and my court ladies can bear the weariness 
as well as even the weakest man in the King’s army, 
and risk a life as bravely, and perhaps strike a clean 
blow or drive a straight thrust for the Holy Sepul- 
chre, shall our souls have no good of it, because we are 
women ?” 

As she spoke, her arm lay across the table, and her 
small strong hand moved energetically with her. 
speech, touching the monk’s sleeve. The fighting 


VIA CRUCIS 157 


blood of the old Duke was in her veins, and there 
was battle in her voice. Bernard looked up. 

“ If you were always what you are at this moment,” 
he said, “and if you had a thousand such women as 
yourself to ride with you, the King would need no 
other army, for you could face the Seljuks alone. 

“But you think that by the time I have to face 
them my courage will have cooled to woman’s tears, 
like hot vapour on a glass.” 

She smiled, but gently now, for she was pleased by 
what he had said. 

‘“ You need not fear,” she continued, before he had 
time to answer her. ‘“ We shall not bear ourselves 
worse than men, and there will be grown men there 
who shall be afraid before we are. But if there were 
with us a leader of men, I should have no fear. Men 
will fight for the King, they will shed their blood for 
Eleanor of Guienne, but they would die ten deaths 
at the bidding of —” 

She paused, and fixed her eyes on Bernard’s face. 

“ Of whom?” he asked, unsuspecting. 

“Of Bernard of Clairvaux.” 

There was a short silence. Then in a clear far-off 
voice, as if in a dream, the abbot repeated his own 
name. 

“ Bernard of Clairvaux—a leader of men? A 
soldier? A general?” He paused as if consulting 
himself. ‘ Madam,” he said at last, “I am neither 
general, nor leader, nor soldier. I am amonk, and 
a churchman as the Hermit was, but not like him 
in this —I know the limitation of my strength. I 
can urge men to fight for a good cause, but I will 


158 VIA CRUCIS 


not lead them to death and ruin, as Peter did, while 
there are men living who have been trained to the 
sword as I to the pen.” 

“IT do not ask that you should plan battles, lead for- 
lorn charges, nor sit down in your tent to study the 
destruction of walled towns. You can be our leader 
without all that, for he who leads men’s souls com- 
mands men’s bodies and lives in men’s hearts. 
Therefore, I bid you to come with us and help us, 
for although a sword is better at need than a hun- 
dred words, yet there are men at whose single word 
a thousand swords are drawn like one.” 

“No, Madam,” said the abbot, his even lips closing. 
after the words, with a look of final decision, “I 
will not go with you. First, because I am unfit to 
be a leader of armies, and secondly, because such life 
as there is left in me can be better used at home 
than in following acamp. Lastly, I would that this 
good fight might be fought soberly and in earnest, 
neither in the fever of a fanatical fury nor, on the 
other hand, lightly, as an amusement and a play, nor 
selfishly and meanly in the hope of gain. My words 
are neither deep, nor learned, nor well chosen, for I 
speak as my thoughts rise and overflow. But thanks 
be to Heaven, what I say rouses men to act rather 
than moves them to think. Yet it is not well that 
they be over-roused or stirred when a long war is 
before them, lest their heat be consumed in a flash of 
fire, and their strength in a single blow. You need 
not a preacher, but a captain ; not words but deeds. 
You go to make history, not to hear a prophecy.” 

“ Nevertheless,” said the Queen, “you must go 


VIA CRUCIS 159 


with us, for if the spirit you have called up sinks’ 
from men’s memories, our actions will be worse than 
spiritless. You must go.” 

“T cannot.” 

“Cannot? But I say won must.” 

**No, Madam —I say no.’ 

For a long time the two sat in silence facing each 
other, the Queen confident, vital, fully-roused to the 
expression of her will; Bernard, on the other hand, 
as fully determined to oppose her with all the fervent 
conviction which he brought to every question of 
judgment or policy. 

“Tf we fall out among ourselves,” said Eleanor, 
at. last, “who shall unite us? If men lose faith in 
the cause before them and grow greedy of the things 
that lie in their way, who shall set them right?” 

The abbot shook his head sorrowfully and would 
not meet her eyes, for in this he knew that she was 
right. 

‘When an army has lost faith,” he said, “it is 
already beaten. When Atalanta stooped to pick up 
the golden apples, her race was lost.” 

“As when love dies, contempt and hatred take its 
place,” said Eleanor, as if in comment. 

“Suck love is of hell,” said Bernard, looking sud- 
denly into her face, so that she faintly blushed. 

“ Yes,” she retorted scornfully, “ for it is the love 
of man and wife.” 

The holy man watched her sadly and yet keenly, 
for he knew what she meant, and he foresaw the end. 

“ Lucifer rebelled against law,” he said. 

“T do not wonder,” said the Queen, with a sharp 


160 vIA CRUCIS 


laugh. ‘He would have rebelled against marriage. 
Love is the true faith—marriage is the dogma.” 
She laughed again. 

Bernard shrank a little as if he felt actual pain. 
He had known her since she had been a little child, 
yet he had never become used to her cruelties of 
expression. He was a man more easily disgusted in 
his esthetic sensibilities than shocked by the wicked- 
ness of a world he knew. To him, God was not 
only great, but beautiful; Nature, as some theologians 
maintain, was cruel, evil, hurtful, but she was never 
coarse, nor foul in his conception, and her beauty 
appealed to him against his will. So also in his eyes 
a woman could be sinful, and her sins might seem ter- 
rible to him, and yet she herself was to him a woman 
still, a being delicate, refined, tender even in her 
wickedness ; but a woman who could speak at once 
keenly and brutally of her marriage reacted upon him 
as a very ugly or painful sight, or as a very harsh and 
discordant sound that jars every nerve in the body. 

“Madam,” he said in a low voice, but very quietly 
and coldly, “I think not that you are in such state 
of grace as to bear the Cross to your good.” 

Eleanor raised her head and looked at him haugh- 
tily, with lids half drooped as her eyes grew hard 
and keen. 

“You are not my confessor, sir,” she retorted. 
‘For all you know, he may have enjoined upon me a 
pilgrimage to the Holy Land. It is a common pen- 
ance.” For the third time she laughed. 

«A common penance!” cried the abbot, in a tone 
of despair. ‘“ That is what it has come to in these 


VIA CRUCIS 161 


days. A man kills his neighbour in a quarrel and 
goes to Jerusalem to purge him of blood, as he would 
take a physician’s draught to cure him of the least 
of little aches. A pilgrimage is a remedy, as a prayer 
isamedicine. ‘To repeat the act of contrition so and 
so often, or to run through a dozen rosaries of an 
afternoon, is a potion for the sick soul.” 

*“ Well, what then?” asked the Queen. 

“ What then?” repeated the abbot. ‘Then there 
is no faith left in the true meaning of the Crusade —” 

“ That is what I fear,” answered Eleanor. ‘ That 
is why I am begging you to come with us. That is 
why the King will be unable to command men 
without you. And yet you will not go.” 

“No,” he replied, “I will not.” 

“You have always disappointed me,” said the 
Queen, rising, and employing a weapon to which 
women usually resort last. “You stand in the 
front and will not lead, you rouse men to deeds 
you will not do, you give men ideals in which 
you do not believe, and then you go back to the 
peace of your abbey of Clairvaux, and leave men 
to shift for themselves in danger and need. And 
if, perhaps, some trusting woman comes to you with 
overladen heart, you tell her that she is not in a 
state of grace. It must be easy to be a great man 
in that way.” 

She turned as she spoke the last words and stepped 
from the platform to the stone pavement. At the 
enormous injustice of her judgment, Bernard’s face 
grew cold and stern; but he would not answer what 
she said, for he knew how useless it would be. In 

M 


162 VIA CRUCIS 


her, and perhaps in her only, of all men and women 
he had known, there was the something to which he 
could not speak, the element that was out of har- 
mony with his own being, and when he had talked 
with her it was as if he had eaten sand. He could 
understand that she, too, was in contradiction with 
her natural feelings in her marriage with such a man 
as the King ; he could be sorry for her, he could pity 
her, he could forgive her, he could pray for her — 
but he could not speak to her as he could to others. 

A dozen times before she reached the door he 
wished to call her back, and he sought in the archive 
of his brain and in the treasury of his heart the 
words that might touch her. But he sought in vain. 
So long as she was before his eyes, a chilled air, dull 
and unresonant, divided his soul from hers. Her 
hand was on the curtain to go out when she turned 
and looked at him again. 

“You will not go with us,” she said. “If we fail, 
we shall count the fault yours; if we quarrel and 
turn our swords upon one another, the sin is yours ; if 
our armies lose heart, and are scattered and hewn in 
pieces, their blood will be on your head. But if we 
win,” she said at the last, drawing herself to her 
height, “the honour of our deeds shall be ours alone, 
not yours.” 

She had raised the curtain, and it fell behind her 
as she spoke the last word, leaving the abbot no 
possibility of a retort. But she had missed her 
intention, for he was not a man to be threatened 
from the right he had planned. Whenshe was gone, 
his face grew sad, and calm, and weary again, and 


VIA CRUCIS 163 


presently, musing, he took up the pen that lay 
beside the half-written page. 

But she went on through the outer hall to the 
vestibule, drawing her thin dark mantle about her, 
her lips set and her eyes cruel, for she had been 
disappointed. Beneath the idle wish to hear Ber- 
nard speak, behind the strong conviction that he 
must follow the army to the East if it was to be 
victorious, there had been the unconscious longing 
for a return of that brave emotion under which, in 
the afternoon, she had taken the Cross with her 
ladies. And a woman disappointed of strong feel- 
ing, hoped for and desired, is less kind than a strong 
man defeated of expectation. 

She was alone. Of all women, she hated most to 
be followed by attendants and watched by inferiors 
when she chose solitude. Relant on herself and 
unaffectedly courageous, she often wondered whether 
it were not a more pleasant thing to be a man than 
to be even the fairest of womankind, as she was. 
She stood still a moment in the vestibule, drawing 
the hood of her cloak over her head and half across 
her face. The outer door was half open; the single 
lamp, filled with olive-oil and hanging from the 
middle of the vault, cast its ray out into the night. 
As Eleanor stood arranging her headdress and 
almost unconsciously looking toward the darkness, 
a gleam of colour and steel flashed softly in the 
gloom. It disappeared and flashed again, for a 
man was waiting without and slowly walking 
up and down before the door. The Queen had 
chosen to come alone, but had no reason for con- 


164 VIA CRUCIS 


cealing herself; she made two steps to the thresh 
old and looked out, opening wide one half of tht 
door. 

The man stood still and turned his head without 
haste as the fuller light fell upon him. It was 
Gilbert, and as his eyes turned to the Queen’s face, 
dark against the brightness within, she started a 
little, as if she would have drawn back, and she 
spoke nervously, in a low voice, hardly knowing 
what she said. 

* What is it?” she asked. “Why did you come 
here?” 

“ Because I knew your Grace was here,” he an- 
swered quietly. 

‘You knew that I was here? How?” 

“ T saw you—I followed.” 

Under her hood, the Queen felt the warm blood 
in her cheeks. Gilbert was very good to see as he 
stood just outside the door, in the bright lamplight. 
He was pale, but not wan like Bernard; he was 
thin with the leanness of vigorous youth, not with 
fasting and vigils; he was grave, not sad; ener- 
getic, not inspired; and his face was handsome rather 
than beautiful. Eleanor looked at him for a few 
moments before she spoke again. 

“ You followed me. Why?” 

“To beg a word of your Grace’s favour.” 

“ The question you asked today?” 

Yies.77 

“Ts it so urgent?” The Queen laughed a little, 
and Gilbert started in surprise. 

“Your Grace wrote urgently,” he said. 


VIA CRUGIS 165 


“Then you are zealous only to obey me? I like 
that. You shall be rewarded! But I have changed 
my mind. If the letter were to be written again, 
I would not write it.” 

“Tt was the letter of a friend. Would you take 
it back?” 

Gilbert’s face showed the coming disappointment. 
In his anxiety he pressed nearer to her, resting his 
hand on the doorpost. The Queen drew back and 
smiled. 

“Was it so very friendly?” she asked. “I do 
not remember — but I did not mean it so.” 

“‘ Madam, what did you mean?” His voice was 
steady and rather cold. 

“Oh—TI have quite forgotten!” She almost 
laughed again, shaking her hooded head. 

“Tf your Grace had need of me, I might under- 
stand. Beatrix is not here. I looked at each of 
your ladies to-day, through all their ranks —she 
was not among them. I asked where she was, but 
you would not answer and were angry —” 

‘or? Anory? You are dreaming |.” 

“JT thought you were angry, because you changed 
colour and would not speak again —”’ 

“You were wrong. Only a fool can be angry with 
ignorance.” 

“Why do you call me ignorant? These are all 
riddles.” 

“ And you are not good at guessing. Come! To 
show you that I was not angry, I will have you walk 
with me down through the village. It is growing 
late.” 


166 VIA ORUCIS 


“ Your Grace is alone?” 

“Since you followed me, you know it. Come.” 

She almost pushed him aside to pass out, and a 
moment later they were crossing the dark open space 
before the church. Gilbert was not easily surprised, 
but when he reflected that he was walking late at 
night through a small French village with one of the 
most powerful sovereigns in Europe, who was at the 
same time the most beautiful of living women, he 
realized that his destiny was not leading him by 
common paths. He remembered his own surprise 
when, an hour earlier, he had seen the Queen’s unmis- 
takable figure pass the open window of his lodging, 
And yet should any one see her now, abroad at such 
an hour, in the company of a young Englishman, 
there would be much more matter for astonishment, 
Half boyishly he wished that he were not himself, or 
else that the Queen were Beatrix. As for his actual 
position in the Queen’s good graces, he had not the 
slightest understanding of it, a fact which just then 
amused Eleanor almost as much as it irritated her. 
The road was uneven and steep beyond the little 
square. For some moments they walked side by 
side in silence. From far away came the sound of 
many rough voices singing a drinking-chorus. 

“Give me your arm,” said Eleanor, suddenly. 

As she spoke, she put out her hand, as if she feared 
to stumble. Doing as she begged him, Gilbert 
suited his steps to hers, and they were very close— 
together as they went on. He had never walked 
arm in arm in that way before, nor perhaps had he 
ever been so close to any other woman. An inde- 


VIA CRUCIS 167 


scribable sensation took possession of him; he felt 
that his step was less steady, and that his head was 
growing hot and his hands cold; and somehow he 
knew that whereas the idea of love was altogether 
beyond and out of the question, yet he was spell- 
bound in the charm of a new and mysterious 
attraction. With it there was the instantaneous 
certainty that it was evil, with the equally sure 
knowledge that if it grew upon him but a few 
moments longer he should not be able to resist it. 

Eleanor would not have been a woman had she 
not understood. 

“What is the matter?” she asked gently, and 
under her hood she was smiling. 

“The matter?” Gilbert spoke nervously. “There 
is nothing the matter; why do you ask?” 

“ Your arm trembled,” answered the Queen. 

‘“‘ T suppose I was afraid that you were going to fall.” 

At this the Queen laughed aloud. 

“ Are you so anxious for my safety as that?” she 
inquired. 

Gilbert did not answer at once. 

“ It seems so strange,” he said at last, “that your 
Grace should choose to be abroad alone so late at 
night.” 

‘¢T am not alone,” she answered. 

At that moment her foot seemed to slip, and her 
hand tightened suddenly upon Gilbert’s arm. But 
as he thought her in danger of falling, he caught her 
round the waist and held her up; and, as he almost 
clasped her to him, the mysterious influence strength- 
ened his hold in a most unnecessary manner. 


168 VIA CRUCIS 


“T never slip,” said Eleanor, by way of explaining 
the fact that she had just stumbled. 

“No,” answered Gilbert. “ Of course not.” 

And he continued to hold her fast. She made a 
little movement vaguely indicating that she wished 
him to let her go, and her free right hand pretended 
to loosen his from her waist. He felt infinitesimal 
lines of fire running from his head to his feet, and he 
saw lights where there were none. 

“ Let me go,” she said, almost under her breath; 
and accentuating her words with little efforts of hand 
and body, it accidentally happened that her head was 
against his breast for a moment. 

The fire grew hotter, the lights brighter, and, with 
the consciousness of doing something at once terrible 
yet surpassingly sweet to do, he allowed his lips to 
touch the dark stuff that hid her russet hair. But 
she was quite unaware of this desperate deed. A 
moment later she seemed to hear something, for she 
turned her head quickly, as if listening, and spoke 
in an anxious half-whisper. 

“Take care! There is somebody —” 

Instantly Gilbert’s hand dropped to his side and 
he assumed the attitude of a respectful protector. 
The Queen continued to stare into the darkness a 
moment longer, and then began to walk on. 

“It was nothing,” she said carelessly. 

“T hear men singing,” said Gilbert. 

“I dare say,” answered Eleanor, with perfect 
indifference. ‘I have heard them for some time.” 

One voice rose higher and louder than the rest 
as the singers approached, and the other voices 


VIA CRUCIS 169 


joined in the rough chorus of a Burgundy drinking- 
song. Near the outskirts of the village, lights 
were flashing and moving unsteadily in the road 
as those who carried them staggered along. To 
reach the monastery which was the headquarters of 
the court, the Queen and Gilbert would have to walk 
a hundred yards down the street before turning to 
the right. Gilbert saw at a glance that it would 
be impossible for them to reach the turning before 
meeting the drunken crowd. 

“Tt would be better to go back by another way,” 
he said, slackening his pace. 

But the Queen walked quietly on without answer- 
ing him. It was clear that she intended to make 
the people stand aside to let her pass, for she con- 
tinued to walk in the middle of the street. But Gil- 
bert gently drew her aside, and she suffered him 
to lead her to a doorway, raised two steps above the 
street, and darkened by an overhanging balcony. 
There they stood and waited. A dense throng of 
grooms, archers and men-at-arms came roaring up 
the steep way toward them. <A huge man in a 
dirty scarlet tunic and dusty russet hose, with soft 
boots that were slipping down in folds about his 
ankles, staggered along in front of the rest. His 
face was on fire with wine, his little red eyes glared 
dully from under swollen lids, and as he bawled his 
song with mouth wide open, one might have tossed 
an apple between his wolfish teeth. In his right 
hand he held an earthen jug in which there was 
still a little wine; with his left he brandished a ban- 
ner that had been made by sewing a broad red 


170 VIA CRUCIS 


cross upon a towel tied to one of those long wands 
with which farmers’ boys drive geese to feed. Half 
dancing, half marching, and reeling at every step, he 
came along, followed closely by a dozen companions 
one degree less burly than himself, but at least quite 
as drunk ; and each had upon his breast or shoulder 
the cross he had received that day. Behind them 
more and more, closer and closer, the others came 
stumbling, rolling, jostling each other, howling the 
chorus of the song. And every now and then the 
leader, swinging his banner and his wine jug, sent a 
shower of red drops into the faces of his followers, 
some of whom laughed, and some swore loudly in 
eurses that made themselves felt through the roaring 
din. But loudest, highest, clearest of all, from within 
the heart of the drunken crowd, came one of those 
voices that are made to be heard in storm and battle. 
In a tune of its own, regardless of the singing of all 
the rest, it was chanting the Magnificat anima mea 
Dominum. Long-drawn, sustained, and of brazen 
quality, it calmly defied all other din, and as the crowd 
drew nearer Gilbert saw through the torchlight the 
thin white face of a very tall man in the midst, with 
half-closed eyes and lips that wore a look of pain 
as he sang —the face, the look, the voice of a man 
who in the madness of liquor was still a fanatic. 

The hot close breath of the ribald crew went be- 
fore it in the warm summer night, the torches threw 
a moving yellow glare upon faces red as flame, or 
ghastly white, and here and there the small crosses 
of scarlet cloth fastened to the men’s tunics caught 
the light like splashes of fresh blood. 


VIA CRUCIS 171 


Eleanor drew back as far as she could under the 
doorway, offended in her sovereign pride and dis- 
gusted as gentlewomen are at the sight of drunken- 
ness. By her side, Gilbert drew himself up as if 
protesting against a sacrilege and against the dese- 
cration of his holiest thoughts. He-knew that such 
men would often be as riotous again before they 
reached Jerusalem, and that it would be absurd to 
expect anything else. But meanwhile he realized 
what a little more of disgust would be enough to 
make him hate what was before him. For a moment 
he forgot the Queen’s presence at his side, and he 
closed his eyes so as not to see what was passing 
before them. 

A little angry sound, that was neither of pain nor 
of fear, roused him to the present. A’ man with a 
bad face and a shock head of red hair had fallen out 
of the march and stood unsteadily before the Queen, 
plucking at her mantle in the hope of seeing all her 
face. He seemed not to see Gilbert, and there was 
a wicked light in his winy eyes. The Queen drew 
back, and used her hands to keep her mantle and 
hood close about her; but the riot pressed onward 
and forced the man from his feet, so that he almost 
fell against her. Gilbert caught him by the neck 
with his hand; and when he had torn the cross from 
his shoulder, he struck him one blow that flattened 
his face for life. Then he threw him down into 
the drunken crowd, a bruised and senseless thing, 
as island men throw a dead horse from the cliff into 
the sea. 

In a moment the confusion and din were ten times 


LiZ VIA CRUCIS 


greater than before. While some marched on, still 
yelling the tipsy chorus, others stumbled across the 
body of their unconscious fellow as it lay in the way ; 
two had been struck by it as it fell, and were half 
stunned; others turned back to see the cause of the 
trouble; many were forced to the ground, impotently 
furious with drink, and not a few were trampled 
upon, and hurt, and burnt by their own torches. 

Eleanor looked down upon a writhing mass of 
miserable human beings who were blind with wine 
and stupid with rage against the unknown thing that 
had made them fall. She shrank to Gilbert’s side, 
almost clinging to him. 

‘We cannot stay here,” she said. “ You must 
not let me be recognized by these brutes.” 

“Keep between me and the wall, then,” he an- 
swered authoritatively. 

His sword was in his hand as he descended the 
two steps to the level of the street and began to 
force his way along between the houses and the 
crowd. It was not easy at first. One sprang at him 
blindly to stop him, but he thrust him aside; an- 
other drew his dagger, but Gilbert struck him on 
temple and jaw with his flat blade so that he fell in 
a heap; and presently the man who was sober was 
feared by the drunken men, and they made little re- 
sistance. But many saw by the torchlight that the 
hooded figure of a woman was gliding along beside 
him, and foul jests were screamed out, with howls and 
catcalls, so that the clean Norman blood longed to 
turn and face the whole throng together with edge 
and: thrust, to be avenged of insult. Yet Gilbert 


VIA CRUCIS 173 


remembered that if he did that, he might be slain, 
leaving Eleanor to the mercy of ruffians who would 
not believe that she was the Queen. So he resigned 
himself and went steadily on along the wall, forcing 
his opponents out of his way, striking them, stun- 
ning them, knocking them down mercilessly, but 
killing none. 

The time had been short from the ‘beginning of 
the trouble till Gilbert reached the turning for which 
he was making. And all the while the high, brazen 
voice was chanting the words of the Canticle, 
above the roaring confusion. When Eleanor, safe 
at last, slipped into the shadows beyond the corner, 
the voice was singing, “He hath visited and re- 
deemed his people,” and far up the street the red- 
cross banner was waving furiously in the glare of 
the torchlight. 

As Gilbert sheathed his sword, Eleanor laid her 
hand on his. 

“You please me,” she said; and though there 
was no light, he knew by her tone that she was 
smiling. “Thank you,” she added softly. “Ask 
what you will, it is yours.” 

In the dark he bent down and kissed the hand 
that held him. 

“Madam,” he said, “I thank Heaven that I have 
been allowed to serve a woman in need.” 

“And you ask nothing of me?” ‘There was 
an odd little chill in her voice as she spoke. 

Gilbert did not answer at once, for he was uncer- 
tain whether to press her with a question about Bea- 
trix, or to ask nothing. 


174 VIA CRUCIS 


“Tf I asked anything,” he said at last, “I should 
ask that { might understand your Grace, and why 
you bade me come in haste to one who is not even 
with you.” 

They were within a few steps of the abbey, and 
the Queen separated a little from him and walked 
nearer to the wall. Then she stopped short. 

*“‘ Good-night,” she said abruptly. 

Gilbert came close to her and stood still in silence. 

“Well?” She uttered the single word with a 
somewhat cold interrogation. 

“ Madam,” said Gilbert, suddenly determined to 
know the truth, “is Beatrix here with you or not? 
I have a right to know.” 

“A right?” There was no mistaking the tone 
now, but Gilbert was not awed by it. 

“‘ Yes,” he answered ; “ you know I have.” 

Without a word Eleanor left him and walked 
along the wall in the deep shadow. A moment later 
Gilbert saw two forms of women beside the taller 
figure of the Queen. He made a step forward, 
but instantly stopped again, realizing that he could 
not press the question in the presence of her ladies, 
She had doubtless placed them there when she had 
come out, to wait until she should return. 

When he could no longer see her in the gloom, 
he turned and retraced his steps. ‘The drunken sol- 
diers were gone on their way to join others in some 
tavern beyond the church, and the street was de- 
serted. ‘The moon, long past the full, was just ris- 
ing above the hills to eastward, and shed a melancholy 
light upon the straggling village. Resentful of the 


VIA CRUCIS 175 


Queen’s mysterious silence, and profoundly sad from 
the impression made upon him by the drunken 
throng through which he had forced his way, Gilbert 
slowly climbed the hill and went back to his lodg- 
ing near the church. ; 

He spent a restless night, and the early summer 
dawn brought him to his open window with that de- 
sire which every man feels, after a troubled day and 
broken rest, to see the world fresh and clean again, 
as if nothing had happened—as the writing is 
smoothed from the wax of the tablet before a new 
message can be written. Gilbert listened to the 
morning sounds,—the crowing of the cocks, the 
barking of the dogs, the calls of peasants greeting 
one another,—and he breathed the cool dawn air 
eratefully, without trying to understand what the 
Queen wanted of him. 


CHAPTER XIII 


Tue Crusade became a fact on that day when the 
sovereigns of France and Guienne together took the 
scarlet cross from Bernard’s hand. But all was not 
ready yet. Men were roused, and the times were 
ripe, but not until the Abbot of Clairvaux had given 
Europe the final impulse could the armies of the 
King and of the Queen, and of Conrad, who 
was never to be crowned Emperor in Rome, begin 
the march of desperate toil and weariness that 
lay between their homes and their death. From 
Vézelay the master preacher and inspirer of man- 
kind went straight to Conrad’s court, doing the will 
of others in faith and without misgiving of con- 
science, to the greater glory of God, yet haunted in 
sleep and waking by the dim ghosts of ruin and 
defeat. He prophesied not, and he saw no visions, 
but he who was almost the world’s physician in his 
day felt fever in its pulse and heard distraction in 
the piercing note of its rallying-cry. 

There were multitudes without order, there were 
kings without authority, there were leaders more fit 
to follow than to head the van. And always, when 
he had preached and breathed fire through the dry 
stubble of men’s parched hopes, till the flame was 
broad and high and resistless, there came to him, in 
the solitude wherein he found no rest, the deadly 
memory of the Hermit’s blasted host, overtaken, 

176 


VIA CRUCIS LTT 


overcome, crushed to a heap of bones in one wild 
battle with the Seljuk horde. 

Many a time he told himself that Peter had be 
no soldier, that stronger and wiser men had won 
what he had failed even to see, and that the memories 
of Godfrey’s fearful wrath, of Raymond’s brave wis- 
dom, and of Tancred’s knightly deeds were more than 
half another victory gained. Yet always, too, in his 
deep intuition of men’s limits, he felt that the 
soldiers of his day were not those great knights 
who had humbled the Emperor of the East and taught 
a lesson of fear to Kilidj Arslan, and who had grasped 
the flowers of Syria and Palestine with iron hands. 
It was indeed God’s will that a great host should go 
forth again, but neither Bernard nor any other man 
could surely tell that in the will of Heaven there was 
victory too. The first to win or die must always and 
ever be the first alone; those who come after them 
imitate them, profit by them, or find ruin sown in the 
ravaged track of conquest; do what they may, believe 
as they can, be their faith ever so high and pure, they 
can never feel the splendid exultation of the soul that 
has found out some godlike and untried deed to do. 

The times had changed in forty years. The modern 
world is turned by the interests of the many, but the 
world of old revolved about the ambitions of the few, 
and the transition began in Bernard’s day after the 
furnace of the eleventh century had poured its molten 
material out upon the world to settle and cool again 
in the castings of nations, separate and individual. 
There was less impulse, more rigidity; here and there, 
there was more strength, but everywhere there was 

N 


178 VIA CRUCIS 


less fire; and as interests grew in opposite directions 
and solidified apart, the chances of any universal 
rising or joint battle for belief grew less. Mankind 
moves westward with the sun; men’s thoughts turn 
back to the bright East, the source of every faith that 
moves humanity; at first, for faith’s sake, men may 
retrace their migration to its source and give their 
own blood for their holy places; and after them a 
generation will give its money for the honour of its 
God; but at the last, and surely, comes the time of 
memory’s fading, the winter of belief, the night 
of faith’s day, wherein a delicately nurtured and 
greedy race will give neither gold nor blood, but 
only a prayer or a smile for the hope of a life to 
come. 

Gilbert Warde began the great march, as some 
others did, in earnest trust and belief. He had 
struck blows in self-defence, and for vengeance; he had 
fought once in Italy for sheer love of fighting and the 
animal joy of the strong northerner in cut and thrust, 
and lately, at Vézelay, he had fought a herdof drunken 
brutes for a woman’s safety; but he had not known 
the false and fierce delight of killing men to please 
God. That was still before him, and he looked 
forward to it with that half-deadly, half-voluptuous 
longing for bloodshed sanctioned and sanctified by 
justice or religion, which is at the main root of every 
soldier’s nature, let men say what they will. 

When the Crusade began its pilgrimage of arms, 
Gilbert had not yet seen Beatrix, nor had he any 
distinct proof, even by the Queen’s word, that she 
was really in France. Eleanor herself had kept him 


VIA CRUCIS 179 


at a distance during the months that elapsed between 
Bernard’s preaching at Vézelay and the departure of 
the host; and he had been much alone, being more 
knight than squire, and yet not having knighthood, 
_ because he would not ask it of the-Queen, since that 
would have seemed like begging for a reward, and she 
did not offer it freely, while the King, of course, knew 
nothing of what had taken place. One night, as he 
sat alone in his chamber, a man entered, cloaked and 
hooded, and laid before him something heavy wrapped 
in a silk kerchief that might have been a woman’s; 
and the man went out quickly before Gilbert had 
thought of asking a question. In the kerchief there 
was a purse of gold, which indeed he sorely needed, 
and yet after the man was gone he sat stupidly staring 
at the contents for a long time. At first it seemed 
to him almost certain that the money came from the 
Queen; but as he remembered her coldness ever since 
the riot at Vézelay, and recollected how many times 
he had of late tried to attract her attention without 
success, the conviction lost ground, and he began to 
believe it possible, if not certain, that the gift had 
proceeded from another source. As men did in those 
days, andas many would do now, he might have taken 
thankfully such fortune as he found in his path, not 
inquiring too closely whether he had deserved it or 
not. But yet he hesitated, and then, turning the thing 
over, he saw on the seal the device of the Abbot of 
Sheering, and he thanked Heaven for such a friend. 
And again, as living much alone made him more 
prone to self-questioning, he asked himself whether 
he had ever loved Beatrix at all. He heard men 


180 VIA CRUCIS 


talk of love, he heard men sing the love-songs of a 
passionate and earnest age, and it seemed to him that 
he could nowhere find in his heart or soul the chords 
that should answer directly to that music. In him 
the memory was a treasure rather than a power; and 
while he loved to dream himself again through the 
pleasant passages of youth, calling up the kind and 
girlish face that was always near him in shadow-land, 
and although the image came, and he heard the voice 
and could almost fancy that he touched the little 
hand, yet it was all soft rather than vivid, it was 
full of tenderness rather than of a cruel and insatiate 
longing, it was a satisfaction rather than a desire. 
And therefore, though the mere name of Beatrix 
had been enough to bring him back from Rome, and 
though he had asked many questions in the hope of 
seeing her, he attempted nothing daring in order 
to be assured of the truth. 

Then came the final preparations, the testing of 
armour, the providing of small things necessary on 
the march, the renewal of saddle and bridle, and all 
the hundred details which every knight and soldier 
in those days understood and cared for himself. Then 
the first march eastward through a changing country 
which Gilbert had not yet seen, the encampment 
upon the heights about Metz, the days spent in 
roaming over the old city, long ago a fortress of 
the Romans—and during all that time Gilbert 
scarcely caught a glimpse of the Queen, though he 
saw the King often at religious functions in the 
lately built church of Saint Vincent; for as yet the 
great cathedral was not even begun. Last of all, on 


VIA CRUCIS 181 


the morning of the final departure the royal armies 
assembled before dawn at the church, the court 
and the greater knights within, the vast concourse 
of men-at-arms and footmen and followers in the 
open air outside. But Gilbert passed boldly in 
among the high nobles of France and Guienne, and 
knelt with them in the dim nave, where little oil- 
lamps hung under the high vaults, and many candles 
burned upon the altars in the side-chapels, shedding a 
soft light on dark faces and mailed breasts and rich 
mantles. Out of the dusky choir rang the high plain- 
chant of monks and singing-boys, from the altar 
the bishop’s voice alone intoned the Preface of the 
Holy Cross, and presently, in the deep silence, the 
Sacred Host was lifted high, and then the golden 
chalice. 

The King and Queen knelt side by side to receive 
the holy bread, and after them the nobles and the 
knights in turn went up to communicate, in long pro- 
cession, while the day dawned through the clerestory 
windows high overhead, and the King and Queen knelt 
all the time with folded hands till the mass was over. 
Then at last the standard of the cross was brought 
forth, with the great standards of France and of Gui- 
enne — the banner of Saint George and the Dragon, 
which Eleanor was to hand down to her sons and sons’ 
sons, kings of England, for generations; and the choir 
began to sing “ Vexilla regis prodeunt ”’ (“ The stand- 
ards of the king go forth”). Soall that great and noble 
host went out in state, chanting the lofty hymn that 
rang with tones of victory, while among cypress 
groves on far Asian hillsides the ravens waited for 


182 VIA CRUCIS 


the coming feast of Christian flesh, and the circling 
kite scanned the broad earth and dancing water 
for the living things that were to feed him full of 
death. 

At last the worst of the fearfuis march was over, 
and the Crusaders lay before Constantinople, travel- 
stained, half-starved and wan, but at rest. The great 
open space of undulating ground before the wall that 
joined the Golden Horn with the Sea of Marmara 
was their camping-ground, and countless tents were 
pitched in uneven lines as far as one could see. The 
King, and Queen Eleanor, and a few of the greater 
nobles had entered the city and were lodged in its 
palaces about the Emperor’s gardens, but all the rest 
remained without. For the German hosts had been 
first to reach the Bosphorus, and where they had 
passed they had left a broad track of dust and ashes 
and a great terror upon all living things. Even in 
Constantinople itself, where the Emperor had re- 
ceived them as guests, they had robbed and ravaged 
and burned as if they had been in an enemy’s country; 
and when at last he had persuaded them to cross over 
to Asia, they had left the great city half sacked be- 
hind them, so that the Emperor’s heart was resent- 
fully hardened against every man who bore the 
cross. 

And indeed he had been long-suffering, for many in 
his place would have borne less; and if he persuaded 
the Crusaders on false pretences to leave his capital 
and push on into Asia, he did so as the only 
means of saving his own people from robbery and 
violence. 


VIA CRUCIS 183 


Though the King and the court only were lodged 
within the walls, while the main force of fighting 
men was encamped without, yet the guard at the 
gates was not over-strictly kept, and many knights 
went in with their squires to see the great sights 
and, if possible, to get a glimpse of the Emperor 
himself. Gilbert did like the rest and gave the cap- 
tain of the Second Military Gate a piece of silver 
to go in. 

At the first glance he saw that there was little 
safety for any stranger who should chance to wander 
from the chief streets. Safe-conduct and security 
had been proclaimed for every soldier who wore a 
cross, and the fear of a cruel death was enough to 
enforce the imperial edict wherever watchmen or 
soldiers were present to remind men of it; but there 
was no rigorous counter-rule on the Crusaders’ side, 
and if the rough Burgundian men-at-arms and the 
wild riders of Gascony who were in Eleanor’s train 
had been admitted in numbers, they would hardly 
have withheld their hands from such desirable 
things as they chanced to find in their way. 
The Greeks stood watching in their doorways and 
their women sat huddled together in the small low 
balconies above, or at narrow windows whence they 
could see the street. Whenever a party of knights 
appeared, the men withdrew within their houses, 
the women were out of sight in a moment, and 
within the windows the curtains were closely 
drawn. Looking to right and left for the sign 
of a friendly tavern or the more desirable attrac- 
tion of henna-dyed hair and painted cheeks and 


184 VIA CRUCIS 


darkened eyes, the strangers saw nothing on each 
side of the street but blank houses and closed doors. 
But when they had passed, the curtains were parted, 
the doors were ajar again, and curious eyes looked 
after the big mailed figures, the gaudy cloaks, and 
the enormous cross-hilted swords of the Frenchmen. 
Of the poorer people in the streets and those whose 
business kept them abroad on that day, the men 
scowled resentfully at the intruders and the women 
drew their veils closely across their faces. For 
although the French were gentler and less uncouth 
to see than the rough Germans who had wrecked the 
city a few weeks earlier, the Greeks were past trust- 
ing any one, and looked upon all strangers with like 
fear and ever-increasing distrust. 

When he was within the gate, Gilbert saw three 
broad roads before him, stretching downward from 
the higher land on which the city wall was built. 
Vast and magnificent, Constantinople lay at his feet, 
a rich disorder of palaces and churches and towers. 
On the left, the quiet waters of the Golden Horn 
made a broad, blue path to meet the Bosphorus in 
the hazy distance before him; on the right, the Sea 
of Marmara was dazzling white under the morning 
sun, where its mirror-like refiections could be seen 
between the towers of the sea-wall. The air was 
full of light and colour, and the smell of late roses 
and autumn fruits and the enchantment of sights 
altogether new took hold of the young man’s senses. 
Far before him and, as it seemed, near the end 
of the central street, a dome rose above the 
level of the surrounding city, raising its golden 


VIA CRUCIS 185 


cross to the deep sky. Without hesitation Gil- 
bert chose that road and followed it nearly a full 
hour before he stood at the gate of Saint Sophia’s 
church. 

He stood still and looked up, hé had heard much 
of the great cathedral and had wished to see it and 
the treasures it contained; but now, by an impulse 
which he followed without attempting to understand 
it, instead of going in he turned on his heel and 
went away. He said to himself that there would be 
plenty of time for visiting the church, and possibly 
the idea of leaving the beautiful daylight for the 
dark aisles and chapels of an ancient cathedral was 
distasteful. In his change of intention there seemed 
not to be that little element of chance that makes a 
man turn to the right rather than to the left when there 
is no choice of ways. He went on skirting the but- 
tresses and outbuildings and following the steep 
descent by the northwest side of the cathedral. 
Here, to his surprise, he found the life of the city 
going on as usual, and as yet none of the Crusaders 
had found their way thither. The tide of business 
at that hour set toward the great markets and ware- 
houses, to the north of which one of the Emperor’s 
smaller palaces was built amid shady gardens that ran 
down to the water’sedge. Gilbert was carried along 
by the stream of hurrying men, who, seeing that he 
was a stranger and alone, jostled him with little cere- 
mony. He had too much wit and perhaps too much 
self-respect, to rouse a street brawl on his own behalf, 
and when any one ran against him with unnecessary 
roughness he contented himself with stiffening his 


186 VIA CRUCIS 


back and holding his own in passive resistance. He 
had reached his full strength and was a match for 
many little Greeks, yet the annoyance was distasteful 
to him, and he was glad to find himself pushed into 
a narrow lane between high walls and crossed by a 
low covered bridge; and at the end, under over- 
hanging branches, he saw the blue light of the sea. 
He followed the byway down to the water, sup- 
posing that there must be some beach or open 
space there, where he might be alone. But, to 
his surprise, both walls were built out on little 
piers into the sea, shutting off the view on each side. 
Looking straight before him, he saw the trees and 
white houses of distant Chalcedon, within the Sea of 
Marmara, but Chrysopolis was hidden on the left. 
The lane ended in a little beach, some six feet wide, 
and a skiff lay there with a pair of oars, half out of 
water, and made fast by a chain to a ring in the 
masonry. A cool breeze drew in through the nar- 
row entrance, and the clear salt water lapped the 
clean sand softly, and splashed under the stern and 
along the wales of the half-beached boat. 

Gilbert rested one hand against the wall and looked 
out, breathing the bright sea air with a sort of 
voluptuous enjoyment, and letting his thoughts 
wander as they would. The march had been long 
and full of hardships, mingled often with real bodily 
suffering, and those who had escaped without disease 
were reckoned fortunate. The war was still before 
them, but no imaginable combat with men could 
be compared with the long struggle for existence 
througk which the Crusaders had won their way 


VIA CRUCIS 187 


to Constantinople. It seemed as if the worst 
were altogether past and as if rest-time had come 
already. 

In the cool and shady retreat from the crowd to 
which Gilbert’s footsteps had led him, an Italian 
might have lain dreaming half the day, and an 
Oriental would have sat down to withdraw himself 
from the material tedium of life in the superior 
atmosphere of kéf. But Gilbert was chilled to a 
different temper by the colder and harder life of the 
North, and the springs of his nature could not be so 
easily and wholly relaxed. In a few moments he 
grew restless, stood upright and began to look 
about him, letting his hand fall by his side from its 
hold on the wall. The walls were solid from end to 
end of the narrow lane, and not less than three times 
a man’s height. The stones of the masonry were 
damp for six or seven feet above the ground, showing 
that the earth was at a higher level behind them 
than in the lane, and the trees of which the branches 
overhung the way were of the sort found in Eastern 
gardens, a cedar of Lebanon on the one side, a syca- 
more on the other; and with the light breeze there 
came to Gilbert’s nostrils the aromatic scent of young 
oranges still green on the trees. It flashed upon him 
that the lane divided the imperial gardens and that the 
walls were built out into the water in order to prevent 
intrusion. One end of the boat’s chain was shackled 
to a ring-bolt in the bows, and the other was made fast 
to the ring in the wall by one of those rude iron pad- 
locks which had been used in Asia since the times of 
Alexander. Gilbert had heard wonderful tales of the 


188 VIA CRUCIS 


gardens at Constantinople, and he resented the idea of 
being so near them and yet so effectually excluded. 
He tried to wrench the boat’s chain from the bows, 
and, failing, he tried to force the lock, but the iron was 
solid and the lock was good; moreover, the chain was 
too short to allow the skiff to float to the end of the 
wall, if he had launched it. The idea of seeing into 
the garden became a determination as soon as he 
found that there were serious obstacles in the way, 
and by the time he had persuaded himself that the 
boat could not help him he would have readily risked 
life and limb for his fancy. A few moments’ reflec- 
tion showed him, however, that there need be no great 
danger in the undertaking, for the defence had a weak 
point. The foundations on which the walls stood 
were above water by several inches and were wide 
enough to give him a foothold if he could only keep 
himself upright against the flat surface. The latter 
difficulty could easily be overcome by using one of 
the oars from the boat, and he began to attempt the 
passage at once, cautiously putting one foot before 
the other and steadying himself with the oar against 
the opposite wall. It did not occur to him that to 
get into the Emperor’s gardens by stealth might be 
looked upon as a serious matter. In a few moments 
he had reached the end and was getting back to the 
land on the other side. 

From the water’s edge three little terraces led up 
like steps to the level of the garden, where the trees 
grew thick and dark; and, although it was early 
autumn, each terrace was covered with flowers of a 
different hue —pink and soft yellow and pale blue. 


wie 


VIA CRUCIS 189 


Gilbert had never seen anything made to grow in 
such orderly profusion, and when he reached the top 
by narrow steps built against the wall, he found him- 
self treading on a fine white gravel surface on which 
not even a single dead leaf had been allowed to lie, 
and which extended some thirty yards inwards under 
the trees to a straight bank of moss that had a sheen 
like green velvet where the sun fell upon it through 
the parted leaves overhead. Very far away between 
the trunks of the trees there was the gleam of white 
marble walls. 

Gilbert hesitated a little, and then walked slowly 
forward toward the bank. As yet he had seen no 
trace of any living thing in the garden, but as he 
advanced and changed his position. he noticed a small 
dash of colour, like the corner of a dark blue cloak, 
beside the trunk of one of the larger trees. Some one 
was sitting on the other side, and he moved cau- 
tiously and almost noiselessly till he saw that the 
person was a lady, seated on the ground and absorbed 
ina book. He did not remember to have seen more 
than two or three women reading in all his life, 
and one of them was Queen Eleanor; another was 
Beatrix, who, as a lonely child in the solitude 
of her father’s castle, had acquired some learning 
from the chaplain, and delighted in speliing out the 
few manuscripts in her father’s possession. 

Gilbert Warde was as much a born sportsman as 
he was a fighter, and he had stalked the fallow-deer 
in Stortford woods since he had been old enough to 
draw an arrow’s head to his finger. 

Step by step, from tree to tree, with cat-like tread, 


190 VIA CRUCIS 


he came nearer, amused by an almost boyish pleasure 
in his own skill. Once the lady moved, but she 
looked in the opposite direction, and then at last, 
when he was within a ..ozen yards of her, half- 
sheltered by aslender stem, she looked straight across 
toward him, and the light fell upon her face. He 
knew that she saw him, but he could not have moved 
from the spot if it had been to save his life, for the 
lady was Beatrix herself. In spite of a separation 
that had lasted two years, in spite of her final growth 
out of early girlhood, he knew that he was not mis- 
taken, and her dark eyes were looking straight into 
his, telling him that she knew him, too. ‘There was 
no fear in them, and she showed no surprise, but as 
she looked, a very lovely smile came into her sad face. 
He was so glad to see her that he thought little or 
not at all of her looks. But she was not beautiful 
in any common sense, and, saving the expression in 
her face, she could hardly have passed for pretty in 
the presence of Queen Eleanor and of most of her 
three hundred ladies. Her forehead was round and 
full rather than classic, and the thick dark eyebrows 
were somewhat rough and irregular, turning slightly 
upwards as they approached each other, a peculi- 
arity which gave an almost pathetic expression te the 
eyes themselves; the small and by no means perfectly 
shaped nose was sensitively drawn at the nostrils, 
but had also an odd lock of independence and in- 
quiry; and the wide and shapely lips were more apt 
to smile with a half-humorous sadness than to part 
with laughter. Small and well-modelled ears were 
half covered by dark brown hair that had been almost 


VIA CRUCIS 191 


black in childhood, and which fell to her shoulders 
in broad waves, in the fashion used by the Queen. 
While Gilbert looked and remained motionless, the 
girl rose lightly to her feet, and he saw that she was 
shorter than he had expected, but slight and delicately 
made. With one hand he could have lifted her from 
the ground, with two he could have held her in the 
air like achild. She was not the Beatrix he remem- 
bered, though he had known her instantly; she was 
not the solemn, black-eyed maiden of whom he some- 
times dreamed; she was a being full of individual 
life and thought, quick, sensitive, perhaps capri- 
cious, and charming, if she could charm at all, by a 
spell that was quite her own. 

Half-frightened at last by his motionless attitude 
and his silence, she called him by name. 

“Gilbert! What is the matter?” 

He shook his broad shoulders as if waking to con- 
sciousness, and the smile in her face was reflected 
in his own. 

The voice, at least, had not changed, and the first 
tones called up the long-cherished record of childish 
years; for scent and sound can span the wastes of 
years and the deserts of separation, when sight is 
dull and even touch is unresponsive. 

Gilbert came forward, holding out both hands; 
and Beatrix took them when he was close to her, 
and held them in hers. ‘The little tears had started 
in her eyes, that were glad as flowers at dewfall, and 
in her very clear, pale cheeks the colour lightened 
like the dawn. 

The man’s face was quiet, and his heart was in ne 


192 VIA CRUCZS 


haste, though he was so glad. He drew her toward 
him, as he had often done, and she seemed light and 
little in his hands. But when he would have kissed 
her cheek as in other times, she turned in his hold 
like a bow that is bent but not strung, and straight- 
ened herself again quickly; and something tingled 
in him suddenly, and he tried hard to kiss her; yet 
when he saw that he must hurt her, he let her go, 
and laughed oddly. Her blush deepened to red and 
then faded all at once, and she turned her face 
away. 

“How is it that I have never found you before 
now?” Gilbert asked softly. “Were you with the 
Queen at Vézelay? Have you been with her on all 
the march ?”’ 

* Yes.” 

“And did you not know that I was with the 
army!” 

“Yes ; but I could not send you any word. She 
would not let me.” The girl looked round quickly 
in sudden apprehension. “If she should find you 
here, it would be ill for you,” she added, with a 
gesture of pushing him away. 

But he showed that he would not go away. 

“The Queen has always been kind to me,” he 
said. “Iam not afraid.” 

Beatrix would not turn to him, and was silent. 
He was not timid, but words did not come easily 
just then; therefore, manlike, he tried to draw her 
to him again. But she put away his hand somewhat 
impatiently and shook her head, whereat he felt the 
tingling warmth in his bloodagain. Then he remem 


VIA CRUCIS 193 


bered how he had felt the same thing on that night 
in Vézelay, when the Queen had pressed his arm 
unexpectedly, and once before, when she had kissed 
him in the tennis-court, and he was angry with him- 
self. 

“Come,” she said, “let us sit down and talk. 
There are two years between us.” 

She led the way back in the direction whence he 
had come, and when they had reached the bank of 
moss she seated herself and looked out under the 
trees, at the blue water. He stood still a moment as 
though hesitating, and then sat down beside her, 
but not quite close to her, as he would have done in 
earlier years. 

“Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “there are two years 
between us. We must bridge them.” 

“And between what we were and what we are 
there is something more than time,” she answered, 
still looking far away. 

“Yes.” 

He was silent, and he thought of his mother, and 
he knew that Beatrix was thinking of her too, and 
of her own father. It had not occurred to him that 
Beatrix could resent the marriage as bitterly as he, 
nor that she could in any way be as great a loser by 
it as he was. 

“Tell me why you left England,” he said at last. 

“And you? Why did you leave your home?” 

She turned to him, and the little melancholy smile 
that was characteristic of her was in her face. 

“T had no home left,’”’ he answered gravely. 

“And had I? How could I live with them? No 


oO 


9 


194 VIA CRUCIS 


— how could I have lived with them, knowing what 
I did, even had they been ever so kind?” 

“Were they unkind to you?” 

Gilbert’s deep eyes grew suddenly pale as they 
turned to hers, and his words came slowly and 
distinctly, like the first drops of a thunder :shower. 

“Not at first. They came to the castle where I 
had been left all alone after they were married, and 
my father told me that I must call the Lady Goda 
my mother. She kissed me as if she were fond of 
me for his sake.” 

Gilbert started a little, and his teeth set together, 
while he clasped his hands over one knee and waited 
to hearmore. Beatrix understood his look, and knew 
that she had unintentionally hurt him. She laid her 
hand softly upon his arm. 

“Forgive me,” she said. “I should not talk about 
it.” 

“No,” he said harshly, “go on! I feel nothing ; 
I am past feeling there. ‘They were kind to you at 
first, you said.” 

“Yes,” she continued, looking at him sideways. 
“They were kind when they remembered to be, but 
they often forgot. And then, it was hard to treat 
her with respect when I came to know how she had 
got your inheritance for my father, and how she 
had let you leave England to wander about the 
world. And then, last year, it seemed to me all at 
once that I was a woman and could not bear it any 
longer, for I saw that she hated me. And whena 
son was born to them, my father turned against me 
and threatened that he would send me to a nunnery. 


VIA CRUCIS 195 


So I fled, one day when my father had ridden to 
Stoke and the Lady Goda was sleeping in her cham- 
ber. A groom and my handmaid helped me and 
went with me, for my father would have hanged 
them if they had stayed behind; so I took refuge with 
the Empress Maud at Oxford, and soon there came 
a letter from the Queen of France to the Empress, 
asking that I might be sent to the French court if I 
would. Andsomething of the reason for the Queen’s 
wish I can guess. But not all.” 

She ceased, and for some moments Gilbert sat silent 
beside her, but not as if he had nothing to say. He 
seemed rather to be checking himself lest he should 
say too much. 

“So you were at Vézelay,” he said at last; “yet I 
sought your face everywhere, and I could not see you.” 

“How did you know?” asked Beatrix. 

“The Queen had written to me,” he answered; 
“so I came back from Rome.” 

“T understand,” said the young girl, quietly. 

“What is it that you understand?” 

“T understand why she has prevented me from 
seeing you, when you have been near me for almost 
a year.” 

She checked a little sigh, and then looked out at 
the water again. 

“TI wish I did,” Gilbert answered, with a short 
laugh. 

Beatrix laughed too, but in a different tone. 

“How dull you are!” she cried. Gilbert looked 
at her quickly, for no man likes to be told that he is 
dull, by any woman, old or young. 


196 VIA CRUCIS 


“Am I? It seems to me that you do not put 
things very clearly.” 

Beatrix was evidently not persuaded that he 
was in earnest, for she looked at him long and 
gravely. | 

‘We have not met for so long,” she said, “that I 
am not quite sure of you.” 

She threw her head back and scrutinized his face 
with half-closed lids; and about her lips there 
was an attempt to smile, that came and went fit- 
fully. 

*‘ Besides,” she added, as she turned away at last, 
“you could not possibly be so simple as that.” 

“By ‘simple,’ do you mean foolish, or do you 
mean plain?” 

“ Neither,” she answered without looking at him. 
«¢ { mean innocent.” 

ae Aa ide 

Gilbert uttered the ejaculation in a tone expressive 
rather of bewilderment than of surprise. He did 
not in the least understand what she meant. Seeing 
that she did not enlighten him, and feeling uncom- 
fortable, it was quite natural that he should attack 
her on different ground. 

“You have changed,” he said coldly. I suppose 
you have grown up, as you call it.” 

For a moment Beatrix said nothing, but her lips 
trembled as if she were trying not to smile at what 
he said ; and suddenly she could resist no longer, and 
laughed at him outright. 

“JT cannot say the same for you,” she retorted 
presently ; ‘you are certainly not grown up yet!” 


VIA CRUCIS 197 


This pleased Gilbert even less than what she 
had said before, for he was still young enough 
to wish himself older. He therefore answered her 
laughter with a look of grave contempt.. She was 
woman enough to see that the time had come to 
take him by surprise, with a view of ascertaining 
the truth. 

“‘ How long has the Queen loved you?” she asked 
suddenly; and while she seemed not to be looking at 
him, she was watching every line in his face, and 
would have noticed the movement of an eyelash if 
there had been nothing else to note. But Gilbert 
was really surprised. 

“The Queen! The Queen love me! Are you 
beside yourself?” 

“ Not at all,” answered the young girl, quietly ; 
“it is the talk of the court. They say that the King 
is jealous of you.” 

She laughed — gayly, this time, for she saw that 
he really had had no idea of the truth. Then she 
grew grave all at once, for it occurred to her that she 
had perhaps made a mistake in putting the idea 
into his head. 

“ At least,” she said, as if correcting herself, 
“that is what they used to say last year.” 

“You are quite mad,” he said, without a smile. 
‘TI cannot imagine how such an absurd idea could 
have suggested itself to you. In the first place, the 
Queen would never look at a poor Englishman like 
me—’”’ 

“T defy any woman not to look at you,” said 
Beatrix. 


198 VIA CRUCIS 


“Why?” he asked, with curiosity. 

“Ts this more simplicity, or is it more dulness ? ” 

“ Both, I suppose,” answered Gilbert, in a hurt 
tone. ‘ You are very witty.” 

“Oh, no!” she exclaimed. ‘ Wit is quite another 
thing.” 

Then her tone changed and her face softened 
wonderfully as she took his hand. 

“Tam glad that you do not believe it,” she said; 
‘and I am glad that you do not care to be thought 
handsome. But I think it is true that the Queen 
loves you, and if she sent to England for me, that 
was merely in order to bring you back to France. 
Of course she could not know —”’ 

She checked herself, and he, of course, asked what 
she had meant to say, and insisted upon knowing. 

“The Queen could not know,” she said at last, 
“that we should seem so strange to each other when 
we met.” 

“Do I seem so strange to you?” he asked, in a 
sorrowful tone. 

“No,” she answered, “it is the other way. I can 
see that you expected me to be very different.” 

‘¢ Indeed, I did not,’ answered Gilbert, with some 
indignation. “At least,’ he added hastily, “if I 
thought anything about it, I did not expect that 
you would be half so pretty, or half —” 

“Tf you thought anything about it,” laughed 
Beatrix, interrupting him. 

“You know what I mean,” he said, justly annoyed 
by his own lack of tact. 

“Oh, yes; of course I do —that is the trouble.” 


VIA CRUCIS 199 


“If we are going to do nothing but quarrel,” he 
said, “I am almost sorry that I came here.” 

Again her tone changed, but this time she did not 
touch his hand. Hearing her voice, he expected 
that she would, and he was oddly disappointed that 
she did not. 

“ Nothing could make me sorry that you found 
me,” she answered. ‘ You do not. know. how hard 
I have tried to see you all through this last year!” 

Her tone was tender and earnest, and though they 
had been long parted, she was nearer to him than 
he knew. His hand closed upon hers, and in the 
little thrill that he felt he forgot his disappointment. 

“ Could you not send me any word?” he asked. 

“IT am a prisoner,” she answered, more than half 
in earnest. “It would be ill for you if the Queen 
found you here; but there is no danger, for they are 
all gone to the high mass in the cathedral.” 

“ And why are you left behind?” he asked. 

“They always say that I am not strong,” she 
replied, “especially when there might be a possi- 
bility of your seeing me. She has never allowed 
me to be with all the others when the court is 
together, since I was brought over from England.” 

“That is why I did not see you at Vézelay,” he 
said, suddenly understanding. 

And with him to understand was to act. He 
might have had some difficulty in persuading him- 
self at leisure that he was seriously in love with 
Beatrix, but being taken suddenly and unawares, he 
had not the slightest doubt as to what he ought 
to do. Before she could answer his last words, he 


200 VIA CRUCIS 


had risen to his feet and was drawing her by the 
hand. 

“Come,” he cried. “I can easily take you by the 
way I came. It is only a step, and in five minutes 
you shall be as free as [ am!” 

But, to his great surprise, Beatrix seemed inclined 
to laugh at him. 

“Where should we go?” she asked, refusing to 
leave her seat. ‘We should be caught before we 
reached the city gates, and it would be the worse 
for us.” 

‘And who should dare touch us?” asked Gilbert, 
indignantly. ‘Who should dare to lay a hand on 
you?” 

“You are strong and brave,” answered Beatrix, 
“but you are not an army, and the Queen — but you 
will not believe what I say.” 

“Tf the Queen even cared to see my face, she could 
send for me. It is three weeks since I caught a 
glimpse of her, five hundred yards away.” 

“She is angry with you,” answered the young 
girl, ‘and she thinks that you will wish to be with 
her, and will find some way of seeing her.” 

“ But,” argued Gilbert, “if she only meant to use 
your name in order to bring me from Rome, it would 
have been quite enough to have written that letter 
without having brought you at all.” 

“And how could she tell that I did not know 
where you were, or that I could not send you a 
message which might contradict hers?” 

“That is true,’ Gilbert admitted. ‘ But what 
does it matter, after all, since we have met at last?” 


VIA CRUCIS 201 


“Yes; what does it matter?” 

They asked the answerless question of each other 
almost unconsciously, for they were finding each 
other again. ‘There are plants which may be plucked 
‘up half-grown, before their roots have spread in the 
earth or their buds ripened to blossoming, and they 
may lie long in dry places till they seem withered 
and dead; but there is life in their fibres still, and 
the power to grow is in the shrivelled stem and in 
the dusty leaf, so that if they be planted again and 
tended they come at last to their due maturity. 
Gilbert and Beatrix might have lived out their lives 
apart, and in the course of years they would have 
been the merest memories to each other; but having 
met in the slow weaving of fate’s threads, they 
became destined to win or lose together. 

Their conversation needed but the shghtest direc- 
tion to take them back to the recollections of other 
times, and one of the first elements of lasting love 
is acommon past, though that past may have covered 
but a few days. To that memory lovers go back 
as to the starting-point of life’s journey, and though 
they may not speak of it often, yet its existence is 
the narrow ledge on which they have reared their 
stronghold in the perilous pass. And the English 
boy and girl had really lived a joint life, in their 
sympathies and surroundings, for years before a joint 
misfortune had overtaken them. In their meeting 
after a long separation they felt at the same time 
the rare delight of friendship renewed, and the still 
rarer charm of finding new acquaintances in old 
friends; but besides the well-remembered bond of 


202 VIA CRUCIS 


habit, and the strong attraction of newly awakened 
interest, there was the masterful, nameless some- 
thing upon which man’s world has spun for all ages, 
as the material earth turns on its poles toward the 
sun — always to hope beyond failure, always to life 
beyond death, always and forever to love beyond 
life. It is the spark from heaven, the stolen fire, 
the mask of divinity with which the poorest of mane 
kind may play himself a god. It has all powers, and 
it brings all gifts—the gift of tongues, for it is 
above words; the gift of prophecy, for it has fore- 
knowledge of its own sadness; the gift of life, for 
it is itself that elixir in which mankind boasts of 
eternal youth. 

The two sat side by side and talked, and were 
silent. and talked again, understanding each other 
and happy in finding more to understand. The sun 
rose high and fell through the rustling leaves in 
fanciful warm tracery of light; down from the Bos- 
phorus the sweet northerly breeze came over the 
rippling water, laden with the scent of orange-blos- 
soms from the Asian shore and with the perfume 
of late roses from far Therapia. Between the 
trees they could see the white sails of little vessels 
beating to windward up the narrow channel, and now 
and then the dyed canvas of a fisherman’s craft set 
a strangely disquieting note of colour upon the sea. 
There seemed to be no time, for all life was theirs, 
and it was all before them; an hour had passed, and 
they had not told each other half; another came and 
went, and what there was to tell still gained upon 


them. 








4 


BEATRIX AND GILBERT 





VIA CRUCIS 203 


They talked of the Crusade, and of how the Queen 
had given her ladies no choice, commanding them to 
follow her, as a noble would order his vassals to rise 
with him to the king’s war. Three hundred ladies 
. were to wear mail and lead the yan of battle, the 
fairest ladies of France and Aquitaine, of Gascony, 
of Burgundy, and of Provence. So far, a few had 
ridden, and many had been carried in closed litters 
slung between mules or borne on the broad shoulders 
of Swiss porters; and each lady had her serving- 
maid, and her servants and mules heavy laden with 
the furniture of beauty, with laces and silks and 
velvets, jewellery and scented waters, and salves for 
the face, of great virtue against cold and heat. It 
was a little army in itself, recruited of the women, 
and in which beauty was rank, and rank was power ; 
and in order that the three hundred might ride with 
Queen Eleanor in the most marvellous masquerade 
of all time, a host of some two thousand servants 
and porters crossed Europe on foot and on horse- 
back from the Rhine to the Bosphorus. The mere 
idea was so vastly absurd that Gilbert had laughed 
at it many a time by himself; and yet there was at 
the root of it an impulse which was rather sublime 
than ridiculous. Between its conception and its 
execution the time was too long, and the hot blood 
of daring romance already felt the fatal chill of com- 
ing failure. 

Gilbert looked at the delicate features and the 
slight figure beside him, and he resented the mere 
thought that Beatrix should ever be exposed to 
weariness and hardship. But she laughed. 


204 VIA CRUCIS 


“JT am always left behind on great occasions,” she 
said. ‘You need not fear for me, for I shail cer- 
tainly not be seen on the Queen’s left hand when she 
overcomes the Seljuks without your help. Ishall be 
told to wait quietly in my tent until it is all over. 
What can Ido?” 

“You can at least let me know where you are,” 
answered Gilbert. 

“ What satisfaction shall you get from that? You 
cannot see me; you cannot come to me in the ladies’ 
camp.” 

‘‘Indeed I can, and will,” answered Gilbert, with- 
out the least hesitation. 

‘At the risk of the Queen’s displeasure ?”’ 

“ At any risk.” 

“ How strange it is!” exclaimed Beatrix, raising 
her eyebrows a little, but smiling happily. ‘ This 
morning you would not have risked anything especial 
for the sake of finding me, but now that we have 
met by chance you are ready to do anything and 
everything to see me again.” 

“Of some things,” answered her companion, “ one 
does not know how much one wants them till they 
are within reach.” 

«¢ And there are others which one longs for till one 
has them, and which one despises as soon as they are 
one’s own.” 

‘‘ What things may those be?” asked Gilbert. 

““T have heard Queen Eleanor say that a husband 
is one of them,” answered Beatrix, demurely, “but I 
dare say that she is not always right.” 

Side by side the two sat in the autumn noonday, 


VIA CRUCIS 208 


each forgetful of all but the other, in the perfect 
unconsciousness of the difference their meeting was 
to make in their lives from that day onward. Yet 
after the first few words they did not speak again of 
‘Beatrix’s father nor of Gilbert’s mother. By a com- 
mon instinct they tried to lose both, in the happiness 
of again finding one another. 

Then, at last, a cloud passed over the sun, and 
Beatrix felt a little chill that was like the breath of 
a coming evil while Gilbert became suddenly very 
grave and thoughtful. 

Beatrix looked round, more in fear than in sus- 

picion, as a child does at night, when it has been 
frightened by a tale of goblins; and, turning, she 
caught sight of something and turned farther, and 
then started with a scared cry and half rose, with 
her hand on Gilbert’s arm. Anxious for her, he 
sprang up to his height at the sound of her voice, 
and at the same moment he saw what she saw, and 
uttered an exclamation of surprise. It was net 
a cloud that had passed between them and the 
sun. ; : 
The Queen stood there, as she had come from the 
Office in the church, a veil embroidered with gold 
pinned upon her head in a fashion altogether her 
own. Her clear eyes were very bright and hard, 
and her beautiful lips had a frozen look. 

“Tt is very long since I have seen you,” she said 
to Gilbert, “and I had not thought to see you here 
— of all places —unbidden.” 

“Nor I io be here, Madam,” answered the 
Englishman. 


206 VIA CRUCIS 


‘Did you come here in your sleep?” asked the 
Queen, coldly. 

“For aught that I can tell how I got here, it may 
be as your Grace says. I came by such a way as I 
may not find again.” 

‘I care not how soon you find another, sir, so that 
it be a way out.” 

Gilbert had never seen the Queen gravely dis- 
pleased, and as yet she had been very kind to him 
when he had been in her presence. Against her 
anger he drew himself up, for he neither loved her 
nor feared her, and as he looked at her now he saw 
in her eyes that haunting memory of his own mother 
which had disturbed him more than once. 

“T ask your Grace’s pardon,” he said slowly, “ for 
having entered uninvited. Yet I am glad that I did, 
since I have found what was kept from me so long.” 

“JT fancied your idol so changed that you might 
not care to find it after all!” 

Beatrix hardly understood what the words meant, 
but she knew that they were intended to hurt both 
her and Gilbert, and she saw by his face what he 
felt. Knowing as she did that the Queen was very 
strongly attracted by him, she would not have been 
human if she had not felt in her throat the pulse of 
triumph, as she stood beside the most beautiful 
woman in the world, pale, slight, sad-eyed, but pre- 
ferred before the other’s supreme beauty by the one 
man whose preference meant anything at all. Buta 
moment later she forgot herself and feared for him. 

“* Madam,” he said very slowly and distinctly, “1 
trust that I may not fail in courtesy, either toward 


VIA CRUCIS 207 


your Grace, or toward any other woman, high or 
low; and none but the blind man would deny that, of 
all women, you are fairest, wherefore you may cast 
it in the face of other ladies of your court that you 
‘are fairer than they. But since your Grace would 
wear a man’s armour and draw a knight’s sword, 
and ride for the Cross, shoulder to shoulder with 
the gentlemen of Normandy and Gascony and 
France, I shall tell you without fear of discourtesy, 
as one man would tell another, that your words and 
your deeds are less gentle than your royal blood.” 
He finished speaking and looked her quietly in the 
face, his arms folded, his brow calm, his eyes still 
and clear. Beatrix fell back a step and drew 
anxious breath, for it was no small thing to cross 
words boldly with the sovereign next in power to 
the Emperor himself. And at the first, the seething 
blood hissed in the Queen’s ears, and her lovely face 
grew ashy pale, and her wrath rose in her eyes with 
the red shadow of coming revenge. But no manlike 
impulse moved her hand nor her foot, and she stood 
motionless, with half her mantle gathered round her. 
In the fierce silence, the two faced each other, while 
Beatrix looked on, half sick with fear. Neither 
moved an eyelash, nor did the glance of either flinch, 
till it seemed as if a spell had bound them there for- 
ever, motionless, under the changing shadows of the 
leaves, only their hair stirring in the cool wind. 
Eleanor knew that no man had ever thus faced her 
before. For a few moments she felt the absolute 
confidence in herself which had never failed her yet; 
the certainty of strength which drove the King to 


208 VIA CRUCIS 


take refuge from her behind a barrier of devotion 
and prayer; the insolence of wit and force against 
which the holy man of Clairvaux had never found a 
weapon of thought or speech. And still the hard 
Norman eyes were colder and angrier than her own, 
and still the man’s head was high, and his face like 
a mask. At last she felt her lids tremble, and 
her lips quiver; his face moved strangely in her 
sight, his cold resistance hurt her as if she were 
thrusting herself uselessly against a rock ; she knew 
that he was stronger than she, and that she loved 
him. The struggle was over; her face softened, and 
her eyes looked down. Beatrix could not under- 
stand, for she had expected that the Queen would 
command Gilbert to leave them, and that before long 
her vengeance would most certainly overtake him. 
But instead, it was the young soldier without fame 
or fortune, the boy with whom she had many a time 
played children’s games, before whom Eleanor, 
Duchess of Guienne and Queen of France, lost 
courage and confidence. 

A moment later she looked up again, and not a 
trace of her anger was left to see. Simply and 
quietly she came to Gilbert’s side and laid her hand 
upon his sleeve. 

“You make me say things I do not mean,” she said. 

If she had actually asked his forgiveness in words, 
she could not have expressed a real regret more 
plainly, nor perhaps could she have done anything 
so sure to produce a strong impression upon the 
two who heard her. Gilbert’s face relaxed instantly, 
and Beatrix forgot to be afraid. 


VIA CRUCIS 209 


“{T crave your Grace’s pardon,” said the young 
man. “If I spoke rudely let my excuse be that it 
was not for myself. We were children together,” he 
added, looking at Beatrix, “we grew up together, 
‘and after long parting we have ‘met by chance. 
There is much left of what there was. I pray that 
without concealment I may see the Lady Beatrix 
again.” 

~The Queen turned slowly from them and stood 
for a few moments looking toward the sea. Then 
she turned again and smiled at Gilbert, not unkindly; 
but she said no word, and presently, as they stood 
there, she left them, and walked slowly away with 
bent head, toward the palace. 


Pp 


CHAPTER XIV 


THREE weeks the French armies lay encamped 
without the walls of Constantinople, while the 
Emperor of the Greeks used every art and every © 
means to rid himself of the unwelcome host, with- 
out giving overmuch offence to his royal guests. 
The army of Conrad, he said, had gained a great 
victory in Asia Minor. ‘Travel-stained messengers 
arrived in Chrysopolis, and were brought across the 
Bosphorus to appear before the King and Queen 
of France, with tales of great and marvellous deeds 
of arms against the infidels. Fifty thousand Seljuks 
had been drowned in their own blood; three times 
that number had fled from the field, and were 
scattered fainting and wounded in the Eastern 
hills ; vast spoils of gold and silver had fallen to 
the Christians, and if the Frenchmen craved a share 
in the victories of the Cross, or hoped for some part 
or parcel of the splendid booty, it was high time 
that they should be marching to join the Germans i in 
the field. 

Yet Louis would have tarried longer to aariotate 
the full month of devotions and thanksgiving for 
the march accomplished, and many of his followers 
would cheerfully have spent the remainder of their 
days on the pleasant shores of the Bosphorus and the 
Golden Horn; but the Queen was weary of the long 

210 


VIA CRUCIS 211 


preface to her unwritten history of arms, and grew 
impatient, and took the Greek Emperor’s side, believ- 
ing all the messages which he provided for her 
imagination. And so at last the great multitude 
was brought over to Asia by boat, and marched by 
quick stages to the plain of Nicza. There they 
pitched their camp by the Lake of Ascanius, and 
waited for news of the Germans ; for the messengers 
had brought information that the German Emperor 
desired to make Nica the trysting-place. But the 
messengers had all been Greeks, and the French 
waited many days in vain, spoiling the country of all 
they could take, though it was in the dominion of 
Christians, and no man dared raise a hand to defend 
his own against the Crusaders. 

Among the French, there were many, both of the 
great lords and of the simple knights, and of poor 
men-at-arms, who would have counted it mortal sin 
to take anything from a stranger without payment, 
who had come for faith’s sake, to fight for faith, and 
who looked for faith’s reward. Yet as there can be 
in logic nothing good excepting by its own com- 
parison with things evil, so in that great pilgrimage 
of arms the worst followed the best in a greedy 
throng, as the jackal and the raven cross the desert 
in the lion’s track. And the roads by which they 
had marched, and the lands wherein they had camped, 
lay waste as lie the wheat-fields of Palestine in June, 
when the plague of locusts has eaten its way from 
east to west. 

When they came to a resting-place after many 
days’ march, mud-stained or white with dust, weary 


212 VIA CRUCIS 


and footsore, their horses lame, their mules over. 
laden with the burdens of those that had died by the 
way, beards half grown, hair unkempt, faces grimy, 
clothes worn shapeless, they were more like a multi- 
tude of barbarians wandering upon the plains of 
Asia than like nobles of France and high-born Cru- 
saders. At first, when they reached the halting-place 
by stream or river or lake, there was a struggle for 
drinking and a strife for the watering of horses and 
beasts of burden, so that sometimes men and mules 
were trampled down and hurt, and some were killed; 
but it mattered little in so great a host, and a spade’s 
depth of earth was ample burial for a man, and if a. 
priest could be found to bless his body on the spot where 
he lay it was enough, since he had died on the road 
to Jerusalem; but the jackals and wild dogs followed 
the march and lay in wait for dead beasts. Then 
when the first confusion was over, when hunger and 
thirst were satisfied, the tents were unpacked with 
their poles, and the sound of the great wooden mal- 
lets striking upon the tent-pegs was like the irregu- 
lar pounding stroke of the fullers’ hammers as the 
water-wheel makes them rise and fall; and though 
the army had crossed Europe and had encamped in — 
many places, the colours of the tents were bright stitl, 
and the pennants floated in streaks of vivid colour 
against the sky. Soon, when the first work was over 
and the little villages of red and green and purple 
and white canvas were built up in their long irregu- 
lar lines, the smoke of camp-fires rose in curling 
wreaths, and bag and baggage, pack and parcel, were 
opened and the contents spread out. As if for some 


VIA CRUCIS 213 


great festival, men and women chose their gayest 
clothes and richest ornaments, so that when they 
met again before the open tents which were set 
up for chapels, one for each little band of fellow- 
‘townsmen and neighbours at home, and afterwards 
when they ate and drank together according to their 
rank, under wide awnings at noontide, or beneath 
the clear sky in the cool of the evening, it was a 
goodly sight, and every man’s heart was lightened 
and his courage returned as he felt that he himself 
had his share and part of the glorious whole. For 
it was as it always is and always must be, where 
power and wealth are masters of the scene, and there 
is no acting room for misery or sorrow or such poor 
strolling players as sickness and death. The things 
which please not the eye are quick to offend souls 
nursed in a faultless taste, and the charnel-house of 
failure receives whatsoever things have not the power 
of pleasing. 

Now when they came to Nicza, hope was high, 
and the light of victory to come seemed to be 
shining in every man’s eyes. ‘There for the first 
time Queen Eleanor led out her three hundred 
ladies in battle array, clad in bright mail, with skirts 
of silk and cloth of gold, and long white mantles, 
each with the scarlet cross upon the shoulder; and 
on their heads they wore light caps of steel orna- 
mented with chiselled gold and silver, and here and 
there with a metal crest or a bird’s wing, beaten 
out of thin silver plate. 

It was at noonday under the fair autumn sun. A 
broad meadow, green still in patches, where the grass 


214 VIA CRUCIS 


had not been burned brown by the early summer heat, 
stretched toward the Lake of Ascanius, where the 
ground rose in hillocks, to end abruptly in a sheer 
fall of thirty or forty feet to the water’s edge. 
There were places where there was no grass at all, 
and where the dry gravel lay bare and dusty, yet on 
the whole it was a fair field for a great assembly of 
men on horseback and on foot. ‘To southward the 
meadow rose, rolling away to the distant hills, 
whither the German host was already gone. The 
great lords, with their men-at-arms and squires, 
riding each in the midst of his vassal knights, went 
out thither to see such a sight as none had seen 
before, and ranged themselves by ranks around the 
field, so that there was room for all. And thither 
Gilbert went also with his man Dunstan, in the 
King’s train, for he owed no service nor allegiance 
to any man there. But they waited long for the 
Queen. 

She came at last, leading her company and mounted 
on a beautiful white Arab mare, the gift of the 
Greek Emperor, as gentle a creature as ever obeyed 
voice and hand, and as swift as the swiftest of the 
breed of Nejd. She rode alone, ten lengths before 
the rest, tall and straight in the saddle as any man, 
a lance in her right hand, while her left held the 
bridle low and lightly ; and at the very first glance 
every soldier in that great field knew that there 
was none like her in the troop. Yet her fair ladies 
made a good showing and rode not badly as they 
cantered by, brilliant and changing as a shower 
of blossoms, with black eyes, and blue, and brown, 


VIA CRUCIS B15 


fair cheeks and dark, and laughing lips not made to 
talk of rough deeds save to praise them in husband 
or lover. 

Next to the Queen and before the following ranks 
‘rode one who bore the standard of Eleanor’s ancient 
house, Saint George and the Dragon, displayed on a 
white ground and now for the first time quartered 
in across. The Lady Anne of Auch was very dark, 
and her black hair streamed like a shadow in the 
air behind her, while her dark eyes looked upward 
and onward. Splendidly handsome she was, and 
doubtless Eleanor had chosen her for her- beauty to 
be standard bearer of the troop, well knowing that 
no living face could be compared with her own, and 
willing to outshine a rival whose features and form 
were the honour and boast of the South. 

They rode in a sort of order, in squadrons of fifty 
each, but not in serried ranks, for they had not the 
skill to keep in line, though they rode well and 
boldly. And before each squadron rode a lady who 
for her beauty or her rank, or for both, was captain, 
and wore upon her steel cap a gilded crest. Hach 
squadron had a colour of its own, scarlet and green 
and violet, and the tender shade of anemones in 
spring, and their mantles had been dyed with each 
hue in the dyeing-vats of Venice, and were lined with 
delicately tinted silks from the East, brought to the 
harbours of France by Italian traders. For the 
merchants of Amalfi filled the Mediterranean with 
their busy commerce and had quarters of their own 
in every Eastern city, and had then but lately 
founded the saintly order of the Knights Hospi- 


216 VIA CRUCIS 


tallers of Saint John of Jerusalem, whence grew the 
noble community of the Knights of Malta, which 
was to live through many centuries even to our 
day. 

Nor could the Queen’s ladies have worn mail and 
steel and wielded sword and lance, so that at a long 
stone’s throw they might almost have passed for 
men, but that cunning jewellers and artificers of 
Italy, and Moorish smiths from Spain, had been 
brought at great pains and cost to France to make 
such armour and weapons as had never been wrought 
before. The mail was of finest rings of steel sewn 
upon soft doeskin, fitted so closely that there was 
no room for gambison or jerkin ; and though it might 
have stopped a broad arrow or turned the edge of a 
blade, a sharp dagger could have made a wound 
beneath it, and against a blow it afforded less pro- 
tection than a woollen cloak. Many had little rings 
of gold sewn regularly in the rows of steel ones, 
that caught the light with a warmer sparkle, and 
the clasps of their mantles were of chiselled gold and 
silver. The trappings of each horse were matched 
in colour with the ladies’ mantles, and the captains of 
the squadrons wore golden spurs. 

They dropped the points of their lances as they 
passed the King where he sat on his horse, a stone’s 
throw from the high shore of the lake, in the 
midst of his chief barons, his pale face expressing 
neither interest nor pleasure in what he saw, and 
his eyes distrustful, as always, of his Queen and her 
many caprices. She, when she had saluted him with 
a smile that was almost a laugh, rode on a little way, 


VIA CRUCIS 217 


and then, with a sharply uttered word of command, 
she wheeled by the left, crossed half the broad field, 
and led her ladies back straight toward the King. 
Within five lengths of him she halted suddenly, 
almost bringing her horse’s haunches to the ground, 
and keeping her seat in a way that would have done 
credit to a man brought up in the saddle. To tell 
the truth, very few of her ladies were able to per- 
form such a feat with any ease or assurance, and in 
the sudden halt there was more than a little disorder, 
accompanied by all sorts of exclamations of annoy- 
ance and ejaculations of surprise; yet, in’ spite of 
difficulty, the whole troop came to a standstill ; 
moreover, a hundred thousand or more of knights 
and soldiers on horseback and on foot were so much 
more interested in the looks of the riders than in their 
horsemanship, and the whole effect of the gay con- 
fusion, with its many colours, its gleams of gold 
and glint of silver, was so pretty and altogether 
novel, that a great cry of enthusiasm and delight 
rang in the sunny air. A faint flush of pleasure 
rose in the Queen’s cheeks, and her eyes sparkled 
with triumph at the long applause which was on her 
side against the King’s disapproval. She dropped 
the point of her lance until it almost touched the 
ground, and spoke to her husband in a high clear 
voice that was heard by many. 

“T present to your Grace this troop of brave 
knights,” she said. “In strength the advantage is 
yours, in numbers, you far outdo us, in age you are 
older, in experience there are those with you who 
have lived a lifetime in arms. Yet we have some 


218 VIA CRUCIS 


skill also, and those who are old in battles know 
that the victory belongs to the spirit and the heart, 
before it is the work of the hand; and in these my 
knights are not behind yours.” 

The men who heard her words and saw the lovely 
light in her wondrous face threw up their right 
hands and shouted great cheers for her and her three 
hundred riders, but the King spoke no word of praise, 
and his face was still and sour. Again the Queen’s 
cheek flushed. 

“ Your Grace leads the army of France,” she said, 
‘“‘an army of brave men. My knights are many, and 
brave too, the troops of Guienne and of Poitou and 
of Gascony and of more than half of all the duchies 
that speak our tongue and owe me allegiance. But 
of them all, and before them all, to ride in van of 
this Holy War, I choose these three hundred ladies. 
My Lord King, and you, lords, barons, knights, and 
men, who have taken upon you the sign of the Cross, 
you, the flower of French chivalry and manhood, 
your comrades in arms are these, the flowers of 
France! Long live the King!” 

She threw up her lance and caught it easily in her 
right hand as she uttered the cry, laughing in the 
King’s face, and well knowing her power compared 
with his; and as the high young voices behind her 
took up the shout, the great multitude that bordered 
the meadow took it up also; but one word was 
changed, and a hundred thousand throats shouted, 
*‘ Long live the Queen !” 

When there was silence at last, the King looked 
awkwardly to his right and left as if seeking advice ; 


VIA CRUCIS 219 


but the nobles about him were watching the fair 
ladies, and had perhaps no counsel to offer. In the 
great stillness the Queen waited, still smiling trium- 
phantly, and still he could find nothing to say, so that 
a soft titter ran through the ladies’ ranks, whereat 
the King looked more sour than ever. 

“Madam,” he began at last. And after that he 
seemed to be speaking, but no one heard what he 
said. 

Apparently with the intention of showing that he 
had nothing more to say, — and indeed it was of very 
little importance whether he had or not, —he waved 
his hand with a rather awkward gesture and slightly 
bowed his head. 

“ Long live the monk!” said Eleanor, audibly, as 
she wheeled to the right to lead her troop away. 

Gilbert Warde sat on his horse in the front line of 
the spectators, some fifty yards from the King, and 
near the edge of the lake. As the Queen cantered 
along the line, gathering her harvest of admiration 
in men’s faces, her eyes met the young Englishman’s 
and recognized him. On his great Norman horse he 
sat half a head taller than the men on each side of 
him, motionless as a statue. Yet his look expressed 
something which she had never seen in his face till 
then ; for, being freed from her immediate influence 
and at liberty to look on her merely as the loveliest 
sight in the world, more strangely beautiful than ever 
in her gleaming armour, he had not thought of con- 
cealing the pleasure he felt in watching her. 

Not all the cheering of the great army, not all the 
light in the thousands of eyes that followed her, could 


220 VIA CRUCIS 


have done more than bring a faint colour to her face, 
nor could any man in all that host have found a word 
to make her heart beat faster. But when she saw 
Gilbert the blood sank suddenly and her eyes grew 
darker. They lingered on him as she rode by, and 
turned back to him a little with drooping lids, and a 
slight bend of the head that had init a grace beyond 
her own knowledge or intention. He, like those 
beside him, threw up his hand and cheered again, 
and she did not see that almost before she had passed 
him he was looking along the ranks for another face. 
The three hundred cantered slowly round half the 
meadow, and the cheer followed them as they went, 
like the moving cry of birds on the wing; and first 
they rode along the line of the King’s men, but 
presently they came to the knights and soldiers of 
Eleanor’s great vassalage, and all at once there were 
flowers ia the air, wild flowers from the fields and 
autumn roses from the gardens of Nicea, plucked 
early by young squires and boys, and tied into nose- 
gays and carefully shielded from the sun, that they 
might be still fresh when the time came to throw them. 
The light blossoms scattered in the air, and the leaves 
were blown into the faces of the fair women as they 
passed. Moreover, some of the knights had silken 
scarfs of red and white, and waved them above their 
heads while they cheered and shouted. And so the 
troop rode round three sides of the great meadow. 
But at the last side there was a change that fell 
like a chill upon the whole multitude of men and 
women, and a cry came ringing down the air that 
struck a discord through the triumphant notes, long, 


VIA CRUCIS yA | 


harsh, bad to hear as the howl of wild beasts when the 
fire licks up the grass of the wilderness behind them. 
At the sound, men turned their heads and looked in 
the direction whence it came, and many, by old 
instinct, slipped their left hands to the hilts of sword 
and dagger, and felt that each blade was loose in its 
sheath. As she galloped along, Queen Eleanor’s white 
mare threw up her head sideways with a snort and 
swerved, almost wrenching the bridle from the 
Queen’s hold, and at the same moment the lusty 
cheering broke high in the air and died fitfully away. 
The instinct of fear and the foreknowledge of great 
evil were present, unseen and terrible, and of the 
three hundred ladies who reined in their horses as 
the Queen halted, nine out of ten felt that they 
changed colour, scarcely knowing why. With one 
common impulse all turned their eyes towards the 
rising ground to southward. 

There were strange figures upon the low hillocks, 
riding out of the woods at furious speed towards the 
meadow, and already the deep lines began to open 
and part to make way for the rush. There were 
men bareheaded, with rags of mantles streaming on 
the wind, spurring lame and jaded horses to the 
speed of a charge, and crying out strange words in 
tones of terror. But only one word was understood 
by some of those who heard. 

“ The Seljuks! The Seljuks!” 

Down the gentle slope they came spurring like 
madmen. As they drew nearer, one could see that 
there was blood on their armour, blood on the rags 
of their cloaks, blood on their faces and on their 


229, VIA CRUCIS 


hands; some were wounded in the head, and the 
clotted gore made streaks upon their necks; some 
had bandages upon them made of strips of torn-up 
clothes —and one man who rode in the front, when 
his horse sprang a ditch at the foot of the hill, threw 
up an arm that was without a hand. 

No man of all the throng who had ever seen war 
doubted the truth for one moment after the first of 
the wild riders was in sight, and the older and more 
experienced men instinctively looked into each other’s 
faces and came forward together. But even had they 
been warned in time, they could have done nothing 
against the fright that seized the younger men and 
the women at the throat like a bodily enemy, chok- 
ing out hope and strength and youth in the dreadful 
premonition of untimely death. The squires pressed 
upon the knights, the boys and young men-at-arms 
and the followers of the camp forced their weight 
inward next, and the inner circle yielded and allowed 
itself to be crushed in upon the troop of ladies, whose 
horses began to plunge and rear with their riders’ 
fright ; and still, on one side, the crowd tried to part 
before the coming fugitives. The first came tearing 
down, his horse’s nostrils streaming with blood, him- 
self wild-eyed, with foam-flecked lips that howled the 
words of terror. “The Seljuks! The Seljuks!” 

A dozen lengths before the terror-stricken wall of 
human beings that could not make way to let him in, 
without warning, without a death-gasp, the horse 
doubled his head under himself as he galloped his 
last stride, and falling in a round heap rolled over 
and over forwards with frightful violence, till he 


VIA CRUCIS 225 


suddenly lay stiff and stark with twisted neck and 
outstretched heels, within a yard of the shrinking 
crowd, his rider crushed to death on the grass behind 
him. And still the others came tearing down the 
hill, more and more, faster and faster, as if no earthly 
power could stop theirrush. First a score and then a 
hundred, and then the torn remnants of a vanquished 
host, blown, as it were like fallen leaves by the whirl- 
wind of the death they had but just escaped. Many 
of them, not knowing and not caring what they did, 
and remembering only the wrath from which they 
fled, did not even try to rein in their horses, and the 
beasts themselves, mad with fright and pain, charged 
right at the ranks of people on foot and reared their 
full height at the last bound rather than override a 
living man; and many were crushed in the press, 
and many fell from their jaded mounts, too weary to 
rise and too much exhausted to utter any words save 
a cry for water. 

Nevertheless, two or three who had more life in 
them than the rest were able to stand, and were 
presently led round the close-packed crowd to the 
edge of the lake, where the King was quietly waiting 
with his courtiers until the confusion should end 
itself, saying a prayer or two for the welfare of every 
one concerned, but making not the slightest attempt 
to restrain the panic nor to restore order. But the 
Queen and her ladies were in danger of being crushed 
to death in the very midst of the seething, bruising, 
stifling mass of humanity. 

Gilbert was near the King, and sitting high on his 
great horse he saw farther than most men above the 


224 VIA CRUCIS 


wild confusion. It was as if some frightful, unseex 
monster were gathering a hundred thousand men in 
iron coils, always inward, as great snakes crush their 
prey, thousands upon thousands, the bodies of horses 
and men upon men and horses, with resistless force, 
till the human beings could struggle no longer, and 
the beasts themselves could neither kick nor plunge, 
but only trample all that was near them, while 
they moved slowly towards the centre. In thou- 
sands and thousands again, on an almost even level, 
the smail round caps of many colours were pressed 
together, till it seemed impossible that there could be 
room for the bodies that belonged to them. As when, 
in vintage time, the gathered fruit is brought home to 
the vats in the sweating panniers of wood, pressed 
down and level to the brim, and the red and white and 
blue and. green grapes lie closely touching each other 
almost floating in the juice, rocking and bobbing all 
at once with every step of the laden mule—so, as 
Gilbert looked out before him, the bright-hued, 
close-fitting caps moved restlessly and without ceas- 
ing all round a central turmoil of splendid colour, 
shaded by tender tones of violet and olive, and shot 
by the glare of sunlit gold, and the sheen of silver, 
and the cold light of polished steel. 

But there in the heart of the press there was 
danger, and from far away Gilbert saw clearly 
enough, through the cloud of light and colour, the 
lifeless tones that are like nothing else of nat- 
ure, the deadly unreflecting paleness of frightened 
faces, and the cries of women hurt and in terror 
came rising over the heads of the multitude. He 


VIA CRUCIS 225 


sat still and looked before him as if his sight could 
distinguish the features of one or another at that 
distance, and he felt icy cold when he thought of 
what might happen, and that all those fair young 
‘girls and women, in their beauty and in their youth, 
in their fanciful dresses, might be crushed and tram- 
pled and kicked to death before thousands who would 
have died to save them. His first instinct was to 
charge the crowd before him, to force the way, even 
by the sword, and to bring the Queen and her ladies 
safely back; but a moment’s thought showed him 
how utterly futile any such attempt must be, and that 
even if the whole throng had felt as he felt himself, 
and had wished to make way for any one, it would 
have had no power to do so. There was but one 
chance of saving the women, and that evidently lay 
in leading off the crowd by some excitement counter 
to its present fear. 

The instant the difficulty and the danger flashed 
upon him Gilbert began to look about him for some 
means of safety for those in peril, and in his distress 
of mind every lost minute was monstrously length- 
ened as it passed. Beside him, his man Dunstan 
stood in silence, apparently indifferent to all that was 
taking place, his quiet dark face a trifle more drawn 
and keen than usual; and though a very slight con- 
traction of the curved nostrils expressed some in- 
ward excitement, it was scarcely perceptible. Gilbert 
knew that his own face showed his extreme anxiety, 
and as he in vain attempted to find some expedient, 
the man’s excessive coolness began to irritate him. 

“ You stand there,” said Gilbert, rather coldly, “as 

Q 


226 VIA CRUCIS 


f you did not care that three hundred ladies of 
France are being crushed to death and that we Eng- 
lishmen can do nothing to help them.” 

Dunstan raised his lids and looked up at his 
master without lifting his head. 

“ T am not so indifferent as the King, sir,” he an- 
swered, barely raising a finger in the direction of the 
knot of courtiers, in the midst of whom, some fifty 
yards away, the cold, pale face of the King was just 
then distinctly visible. “ France might be burned 
before his eyes, yet he would pray for his own soul 
rather than lift a hand for the lives of others.” 

“We are as bad as he,” retorted Gilbert, almost 
angrily, and moving uneasily in his saddle as he felt 
himself powerless. 

Dunstan did not answer at once, and he bit one side 
of his lower lip nervously with his pointed teeth. 
Suddenly he stooped down and picked up something 
against which his foot had struck as he moved. 
Gilbert paid no attention to what he did. 

“Do you wish to draw away the crowd so as to 
make room for the Queen ?”’ he asked. 

“Of course I do!” Gilbert looked at his man 
inquiringly, though his tone was harsh and almost 
angry. ‘* We cannot cut a way for them through the 
crowd,” he added, looking before him again. 

Dunstan laughed quietly. 

“T will lay my life against a new tunic that I can 
make this multitude spin on itself like a whipped 
top,” he said. “But I admit that you could not, 
sir.” 


“Why not?” asked Gilbert, instantly bending 


VIA CRUCIS P| 


\ 


down in order to hear better. ‘“ What can you do 
that I cannot?” 

“What gentle blood could never do,” replied the 
man, with a shade of bitterness. “Shall I have the 
new tunic if I save the Lady Beatrix—and the 
Queen of France?” 

“Twenty! Anything you ask for! But be 
quick —”’ 

Dunstan stooped again, and again picked up some- 
thing from under his foot. 

“T am only a churl,” he said as he stood upright 
again, “but I can risk my life like you for a lady, 
and if I win, I would rather win a sword than a bit 
of finery.” 

‘¢ You shall win more than that,” Gilbert answered, 
histone changing. ‘ Butif you know of anything to 
do, in the name of God do it quickly, for it is time.” 

*‘ Good-by, sir.” 

Gilbert heard the two words, and while they were 
still in his ears, half understood, Dunstan had slipped 
away among the squires and knights around them, 
and was lost to sight. 

One minute had not passed when a wild yell rent 
the air, with fierce words, high and clear, which 
thousands must have heard at the very first, even 
had they not been repeated again and again. 

“The King has betrayed us! ‘The King is a 
traitor to the Cross!” 

At the very instant a stone flew straight from 
Dunstan’s unerring hand, and struck the King’s 
horse fairly between the eyes, upon the rich frontlet, 
heavy with gold embroidery. The charger reared 


228 VIA CRUCIS 


up violently to his height, and before he had got his 
head down to plunge, Dunstan’s furious scream split 
the air again, and the second stone struck the King 
himself full on the breast, and rolled to the saddle 
and then to the ground. 

“The King has betrayed us all! Traitor! Traitor! 
Traitor!” 

There never yet was a feverish, terror-struck 
throng of men, suddenly disheartened by the un- 
answerable evidence of a great defeat by which they 
themselves might be lost, that would not take up the 
ery of “ Traitor!” against their leaders. Before he 
raised his voice, Dunstan had got among men who 
knew him neither by sight nor by name, and the second 
stone had net sped home before he was gone again in 
a new direction, silent now, with compressed lips, his 
inscrutable dark eyes looking sharply about him. 
He had done his work, and he knew what might 
happen to him if he were afterwards recognized. 
But none heeded him. ‘The uproar went surging 
towards the King with a rising fury, like the turn of 
the tide in a winter storm, roaring up to the break- 
ing pitch, and many would have stoned him and 
torn him to pieces; but there were many also, older 
and cooler men, who pressed round him, shoulder 
to shoulder, with swords drawn and flashing in the 
sunlight, and faces set to defend their liege lord and 
sovereign. In an instant the fying Germans were 
forgotten; and the Emperor and his army, and the 
meaning of the Holy War and of the Cross itself, 
were gone from men’s minds in the fury of riot on 
the one side, in the stern determination of defence 


VIA CRUCIS 229 


on the other. The vast weight of men rolled for- 
ward, pushed by those behind, forcing the King and 
those who stood by him to higher ground. In dire 
distress, and almost hopeless of extricating her gentle 
troop from destruction, the Queen heard the new 
tumult far away, and felt the close press yielding on 
one side. ‘The word ‘traitor’ ran along like a quick 
echo from mouth to mouth, repeated again and again, 
sometimes angrily, sometimes in tones of unbelief, 
but always repeated, until there was scarcely one man 
in a hundred thousand whose lips had not formed the 
syllables. Eleanor saw her husband and his com- 
panions with their drawn swords moving in the air, 
on the knoll; she heard the stinging word, and a hard 
and scornful look lingered in her face a moment. 
She knew that the accusation was false, that it was 
too utterly empty to have meaning for honest men ; 
yet she despised her husband merely because a mad- 
man could cast such a word at him; and in the 
security of power and dominions far greater than 
his, as well as of a popularity to which he could 
never attain, she looked upon him in her heart as a 
contemptible kinglet, to marry whom had been her 
most foolish mistake. And it had become the object 
of her life to put him away if she could. 

For a few moments she looked on across the sea 
of heads that had already begun to move away. Her 
mare was quieter now in the larger space, being a 
docile creature, but many of the other ladies’ horses 
were still plunging and kicking, though so crowded 
that they could do each other little hurt. She saw 
how the knights were forcing their way to the King’s 


230 VIA CRUCIS 


side, and how the great herd of footmen resisted them, 
while the word of shame rose louder in their yells; 
and though she despised the King, the fierce instinct 
of the great noble against the rabble ran through her 
like a painful shock, and her face turned pale as she 
felt her anger in her throat. 

There was room now, for the great throng was 
rushing from her, spreading like a river, and dividing 
at the hillock where it met the knights’ swords, and 
flowing to right and left along the edge of the lake. 
The Queen looked behind her, to see what ladies were 
nearest to her, and she saw her standard bearer, 
Anne of Auch, fighting her rearing charger; and 
next to her, quiet and pale, on a vicious Hungarian 
gelding a great deal too big for her, but which she 
seemed to manage with extraordinary ease, sat Bea- 
trix de Curboil, a small, slim figure in a delicate 
mail that looked no stronger than a silver fishing-net, 
her shape half hidden by her flowing mantle of soft 
olive-green with its scarlet cross on the shoulder, and 
wearing a silver dove’s wing on her light steel cap. 

Her eyes met Eleanor’s and lightened in sympathy 
of thought, so that the other understood in a flash. 
The Queen’s right hand went up, lifting the lance 
high in air; half wheeling to the left, and turning 
her head still farther, she called out to those behind 
her: — 

“Ladies of France! The rabble is at the King — 
Forward! ”’ 

An instant later, the fleet Arab mare was galloping 
straight for the crowd, and Eleanor did not look be- 
hind her again, but held her lance before her and a 


VIA CRUCIS 231 


little raised, so that it was just ready to fall inte 
rest. Directly behind her rode the Lady Anne, the 
shaft of the standard in the socket of her stirrup, her 
arm run through the thong, so that she had both 
hands free; she sat erect in the saddle, her horse 
already at a racing galiop, neck out, eyes up, red 
nostrils wide, delighting in being free from restraint; 
and. Beatrix was there, too, like a feather on her big 
brown Hungarian, that thundered along like a storm, 
his wicked ears laid straight back, and his yellowish 
young teeth showing under his quivering lp. But 
of all the three hundred ladies none followed them. 
The others had not understood the Queen’s command, 
or had not heard, or could not manage their horses, 
or were afraid. And the three women rode at the 
mob, that was now four hundred yards away. 
‘Straight they rode, heedless and unaware that they 
were alone, nor counting how little three women could 
do against thousands. But the people heard the 
hammering hoofs of the two big horses, and the 
Arab’s light footfall resounded quickly and steadily, 
as the fingers of a dancer striking the tambourine. 
Hundreds glanced back to see who rode so fast, and 
thousands turned their heads to know why the others 
looked; and all, seeing the Queen, pressed back to 
right and left, making way, partly in respect for her 
and much in fear for themselves. Far up the rising 
ground, the riot ceased as suddenly as it had begun; 
the men-at-arms drew back in shame, and many tried 
to hide their faces, lest they should be known again. 
The tide of human beings divided before the swiftly 
riding women, as the cloud-bank splits before the 


2o2 VIA CRUCIS 


northwest wind in winter, and the white mare sped 
like a ray of light between long wavering lines of 
rough faces and gleaming arms. 

The Queen glanced scornfully to each side as she 
passed in a gale, and the dear sense of power soothed 
her stirred pride. Still the line opened, and still she 
rode on, scarcely rising and sinking with the mare’s 
wonderful stride. But the way that was made for hex 
was not straight to the King now; the throng was 
more dense there, and the people parted as they 
could, so that the three ladies had to follow the only 
open passage. Suddenly, before them, there was 
an end, where the rolling ground broke away 
sharply in a fall of forty feet to the edge of the 
lake below. ‘The heads of the last of the crowd 
who stood at the brink were clear and distinct 
against the pale sky. The Queen could not see the 
water, but she felt that there was death in the leap. 
Her two companions looked beyond her and saw 
also. 

Eleanor dropped her lance quietly to the right, so 
that it should not make her followers fall, and 
with hands low and weight thrown back in the 
deep saddle she pulled with ail her might. Her 
favourite black horse, broken to her own hand, would 
have obeyed her ; she might have been able to stop 
Beatrix’s great Hungarian, for her white hands were 
as strong as a man’s ; but the Arab mare was trained 
only to the touch of an Arab halter and the deep 
caress of an Arab voice, and at the first strain of the 
cruel French bit she threw up her head, swerved, 
caught the steel in her teeth, and shot forward again 


VIA CRUCIS 233 


at twice her speed. Eleanor tried in vain to wrench 
the mare’s head to one side, into the shrinking crowd. 

The Queen’s face turned grey, but her lips were 
set and her eyes steady, as she looked death in the 
face. Behind her, Beatrix’s little gloved hands were 
like white moths on her steadily jerking bridle, the 
Hungarian’s terrific stride threw up the sods behind 
her, and there was a hopeless, far-away look in her 
face, almost like a death-smile. Only the strong 
dark woman of the South seemed still to have 
control over her horse, and he slowly slackened his 
speed, and fell a little behind the other two. 

In the fearful danger the crowd was silent and 
breathless, and many men turned pale as they saw. 
But none moved. 

One second, two seconds, three seconds, and to 
every second two strides ; the end of three women’s 
lives was counted by the wild hoof-strokes. The 
race might last while one could count ten more. 

Gilbert Warde had at first tried to press nearer 
to the King, but he saw that it was useless, because 
the latter was already shoulder to shoulder with the 
nobles and knights. So he had turned back to face 
the crowd with those about him, and with the flat of 
his blade he had beaten down some few swords which 
men had dared to draw; but he had wounded no one, 
for he knew that it was a madness which must pass 
and must be forgiven. 

Then he found himself with his horse on the very 
edge of the open track made by the dividing people, 
and he looked and saw the Queen, and Beatrix three 
or four lengths behind her, as the matchless Arab 


234 VIA CRUCIS 


gained ground in the race. He had been above the 
deep fall and understood. Instantly he was on his 
feet on the turf, a step out in the perilous way; and 
he wished that he had the strength of Lancelot in his 
hands, with the leap of a wild beast in his feet, but 
his heart did not fail him. : 

In one second he lived an hour. His life was 
nothing, but he could only give it once, to save 
one woman, and she must be Beatrix, let such chance 
befall Eleanor as might. Yet Eleanor was the 
Queen, and she had been kind to him, and in the 
fateful instant of doom his eyes were on her face; 
he would try to save the other, but unconsciously he 
made one step forward again and stood waiting in 
midway. One second for a lifetime’s thought, one 
for the step he made, and the next was the last. He 
could hear the rush of the wind, and Eleanor was 
looking at him. 

In that supreme moment her face changed, and the 
desperate calm in her eyes became desperate fear for 
him she loved even better than she knew. 

“Back!” she cried, and the cry was a woman’s 
agonized scream, not for herself. 

With all her might, but utterly in vain, she 
wrenched sideways at the mare’s mouth and she 
closed her eyes lest she should see the man die. He 
had meant to let her pass to her death, for the girl 
was dearer to him, and he had gathered his strength 
like a bent spring toserve him. But he saw her eyes 
and heard her cry, and in the flash of instinct he knew 
she loved him, and that she wished him to save him- 
self rather than her; and thereby is real love proved 
on the touchstone of fear. 





99 


SKY WHIRLED WITH HIM 


WHILE EARTH AND 


- HELD, 


HE 


“6 





VIA CRUCIS ya ts 


As he sprang, he knew that he had no choice, 
though he did not love her. The fall of her mare, 
if his grip held, might stop the rest. He sprang; 
he saw only the Arab’s bony head and the gold 
on the bridle, as both his hands grasped it. Then 
he saw nothing, but yet he held, and, dead, he would 
have held still, as the steel jaws of the hunter’s 
trap hold upon the wolf’s leg-bone. He knew that 
he was thrown down, dragged, pounded, bruised, 
twisted like a rope till his joints cracked. But he 
held, and felt no pain, while earth and sky whirled 
with him. It was not a second; it was an hour, a 
year, a lifetime; yet he could not have loosed his 
hands, had he wished to let go, for there were in him 
the blood and the soul of the race that never yielded 
its grip on whatsoever it held. 

It lasted a breathing-space, while the mare plunged 
wildly and staggered, and her head almost touched 
the ground and dragged the man’s hands on the turf; 
then as his weight wrenched her neck back, her 
violent speed threw her hind quarters round, as a 
vane is blown from the gale. At the same instant 
the great Hungarian horse was upon her, tried to leap 
her in his stride, struck her empty saddle with his 
brown chest, and fell against her and upon her with 
all his enormous weight, and the two rolled over 
each other, frantically kicking. The standard bearer’s 
horse, less mad than the others and some lengths 
behind, checked himself cleverly, and after two or 
three short, violent strides, that almost unseated his 
rider, planted his fore feet in the turf and stood stock- 
still, heaving and trembling. ‘The race was over. 


236 VIA CRUCIS 


With the strength and instinct of the born rider, 
Eleanor had slipped her feet from the stirrups and 
had let herself be thrown, lifting herself with her 
hands on the high pommel and vaulting clear away. 
She fell, but was on her feet before any man of the 
dazed throng could help her. She saw Gilbert lying 
his full length on his side, his body passive, but his 
arms stretched beyond his head, while his gloved 
hands still clenched upon the bridle and were pulled 
from side to side by the mare’s faintly struggling 
head. His eyes were half open toward the Queen, 
but they were pale and saw nothing. The Hunga- 
rian had rolled half upon his back, little hurt, and 
the pommels of the saddle under him kept him from 
turning completely over. 

Beatrix lay like one dead. She had been thrown 
over the Arab’s back, striking her head on the turf, 
and the mare in her final struggle had rolled upon 
her feet. The light steel cap had been forced down 
over her forehead in spite of its cushioned lining, and 
the chiselled rim had cut into the flesh so that a little 
line of dark blood was slowly running across the 
white skin; and her white gloved hands were lying 
palm upward, half open and motionless. The Queen 
scarcely glanced at her. 

Many men sprang forward when the danger was 
past, and they dragged Beatrix out and began to get 
her horse upon his feet. Eleanor knelt by Gilbert 
and tried to take his fingers from the bridle, but 
could not, so that she had to loose the buckle from 
the long bars of the bit. Her hands chafed his 
temples softly, and she bent lower and blew upon 


VIA CRUCIS Zar 


his face, that her cool breath might wake him. There 
were drops of blood on his forehead and on his chin, 
his cloth tunic was torn in many places, and the 
white linen showed at the rents; but Eleanor saw 
only the look in his face, serene and" strong even in 
his unconsciousness, while in the dream of his swoon 
he saved her life again. . 

In that moment, knowing that he could not see 
her, she thought not of her own face as she gazed 
upon his, nor of hiding what she felt; and the thing 
she felt was evil, and it was sweet. But suddenly 
there was life in his look, with a gentle smile, and 
the strained fingers were loosed with a sigh, and a 
long-unused word came from his lips. 

Mother! ” 

Eleanor shook her beautiful head slowly. Then 
Gilbert’s face darkened with understanding and the 
old pain clutched at his heart sharply, even before 
the keen bodily hurt awoke in his wrung limbs. All 
at once thought came, and he knew how, in a quick 
fall of his heart, he had forgotten Beatrix and had 
almost given his life to save the Queen. As if he 
had been stung, he started and raised himself on 
one hand, though it was as if he forced his body 
among hot knives. 

“She is dead!” he cried, with twisting lips. 

““No — you saved us both.” 

The words came soft and clear, as Eleanor laid her 
hand upon his shoulder to quiet him, and watched 
the change as the agony in his eyes faded to relief 
and brightened to peace. 

“Thank God!” 


238 VIA CRUGCIS 


He sank upon her arm, for he was much bruised. 
But her face changed, too, and she suffered new 
things, because in her there was good as well as evil, 
for as she loved him more than before he had saved 
her, so she would give him more, if she might, even 
to forgetting herself. 

And so, for a few moments, she knelt and watched 
him, heedless of the people about her, and scarcely 
seeing a dark man whom she had never noticed before, 
and who bent so low that she could not see his face, 
quietly loosening his master’s collar and then feel- 
ing along his arms and legs for any bone hurt there 
might be. 

“Who are you?” asked the Queen, at last, gently, 
as to one who was helping him she loved. 

“His man,” answered Dunstan, laconically, with- 
out looking up. 

“Take care of him and bring me word of him,’ 
she answered, and from a wallet she gave him gold, 
which he took, silently bending his head still lower 
in thanks. 

He, too, had saved her that day, and knew it, 
though she did not. 

She stood up at last, gathering her mantle round 
her. Less than ten minutes had passed since she 
had thrown up her hand and called to her ladies to 
follow her. Since then the world had been in her- 
self and on fire, leaving no room for other thoughts; 
but now the crowd had parted wide, and the King 
was coming towards her, slow and late, to know 
whether she were hurt, for he had seen her ride. 

“ Madam,” he said, when he had dismounted, “I 


b 


VIA CRUCIS 239 


thank the mercy of Heaven, which deigned to hear 
the prayers I was continually offering up for your 
safety while your life was threatened by that dan- 
gerous animal. We will render thanks in divine 
services during ten days before proceeding farther, 
or during a fortnight if you prefer it.” © 

“Your Grace,” said Eleanor, coldly, “is at liberty 
to praise Heaven by the month if it seems good to 
you. But for that poor Englishman, who lies there 
in a swoon, and who caught my horse’s bridle at the 
risk of his life, you might have been ordering masses 
for my soul instead of for my bodily preservation. 
They would have been much needed had I been killed 
just then.” 

The King crossed himself devoutly, half closed 
his eyes, bent himself a little, and whispered a short 
prayer. 

“Tt would be better,’ observed the Queen, “to 
move on at once and support the Emperor.” 

“It has pleased God that the army of the Emperor 
should be totally destroyed,’ answered the King, 
calmly. “The Emperor himself will be here in a 
few hours, unless he has perished with the rest of his 
knights, slain by the Seljuk horsemen who are pur- 
suing the fugitives.” ) 

‘The more reason why we should save those who are 
still alive. My army shall march to-morrow at day- 
break — your Grace may stay behind and pray for us.” 

She turned from him scornfully. Dunstan and some. 
foot-soldiers had made stretchers with lances and pikes 
and were just beginning to carry Beatrix and Gilbert 
away, northward, in the direction of the camp. 


CHAPTER XV 


WHEN Gilbert learned from his man that Beatrix 
was badly hurt and suffering great pain, he turned 
his face away and bit hard on the saddle-bag that 
served him fora pillow. It was late in the afternoon, 
and Dunstan had just come back from making in- 
quiries in the ladies’ lines, half a mile away. 

Nothing could have been simpler than his round 
tent, which had a single pole and covered a circle 
four or five paces in diameter. ‘The dry ground had 
been sprinkled with water and beaten with mallets 
so as to harden it as much as possible. Gilbert and 
his two men slept on smoke-cured hides over which 
heavy woollen blankets were spread, almost as thick 
as carpets, hand-woven in rough designs of vivid 
blue and red, the coarse work of shepherds of Au- 
vergne, but highly valued. 

Against the pole the saddles were piled one upon 
another, Gilbert’s own on top, with its curved pom- 
mels; Dunstan’s, covered with plaited lines for 
binding on rolled blankets and all sorts of light 
packages and saddle-bags before and behind the 
rider’s seat; and the mule’s pack-saddle, on which 
little Alric rode, perched upon the close-bound bun- 
dles, when the road was fair. During most of the 
journey the sturdy Saxon had trudged along on foot, 
as Dunstan did also, but it was not seemly that a 

240 


VIA CRUCIS 241 


man of gentle blood should be seen walking on the 
march, except of great necessity. 

Above the saddles Gilbert’s mail hung by the 
neck, with a stout staff run through both arms to 
stretch it out, lest dampness should rust it; also his 
other armour and his sword were fastened up like an 
ancient trophy, with bridles and leathern bottles and 
other gear. Beside the saddles, on the ground, 
the shining copper kettle held three bright brass 
bowls, well-scoured wooden trenchers, a long wooden 
ladle, an iron skewer, and three brass spoons, the 
simple necessities for cooking and eating. Forks 
had not been thought of in those days. 

Gilbert lay on his back and turned his face away 
from his man. He was bruised and scratched, and 
his head ached from being struck on the ground when 
the mare had dragged him; but he. was whole and 
sound in limb, and Dunstan had stretched his joints 
and pressed his bruises with a wise touch that had 
in it something of Oriental skill. He lay wrapped 
in a long robe of coarse white linen, as thick as wool 
—a sensible Greek garment which he had got in 
Constantinople. The afternoon was warm, and 
though the flap of the tent was raised and stretched 
out like an awning, there was little air, and the 
place smelt of the leathern trappings and of hot 
canvas; and through the side to which he turned 
his face Gilbert could see little dazzling sparks of 
rays where the sun was beating full upon the out- 
side. 

He wished that in the mad rush of the Arab the 
life might have been pounded out cf him, and that 


R 


949 VIA CRUCIS 


he might never have waked to know what he had 
done; for although in his sober senses he did not 
love the Queen, it seemed to him that he had loved 
her in the moment when he sprang to save her 
life, and that he could never again forget the look 
of fear for him in her eyes and her cry of terror for 
his sake. All that Beatrix had said to him in the 
garden at Constantinople came back to him now; 
until now, he had disbelieved it all, as a wild and 
foolish impossibility, for he was over-modest and 
diffident of himself in such matters. 

Beatrix would certainly have been killed but for 
the chance which had thrown the mare across the 
narrow way, and he had risked his life to save 
another woman. It mattered not that the other was 
the Queen; that was not the reason why he had leapt 
upon the bridle. He had done it for a glance of 
her eyes, for the tone of her voice, as it were in an 
instant of temptation, when he had stepped out of 
the rank to face destruction for a dearer sake. It 
seemed like a crime, and it proved against his own 
belief that he loved what he loved not. Had he let 
the Queen pass, and had he stopped Beatrix’s horse 
instead, she might have been unhurt, and one other 
brave man might have saved Eleanor at the brink. 
Indeed, he thought of the sad face with its pathetic 
little smile, drawn with pain and hot upon the pillow, 
by his fault; and he thought with greater fear of the 
danger that some deep hurt might leave the slender 
frame bent and crippled for life. 

But meanwhile the news had spread quickly that 
it was the silent Englishman, neither knight nor 


VIA CRUCIS 243 


squire, who had saved the Queen, and outside the 
tent men stopped and talked of the deed, and asked 
questions of Alric, who had picked up enough 
Norman-French to give tolerably intelligible an- 
swers. At first came soldiers, passing as they went 
to fetch water from the lake, and again as they came 
back with copper vessels filled to the brim and drip- 
ping upon their shoulders, they set down their bur- 
dens and talked together. Presently came a great 
knight, the Count of Montferrat, brother to the 
Count of Savoy, who had been at Vézelay,. where 
Gilbert had talked with him. He walked with 
slow strides, his bright eyes seeming to cut a 
way for him, his long mantle trailing, his soft red 
leather boots pushed down in close creases about 
his ankles, his gloved hand pressing down the cross- 
hilt of his sword, so that the sheath lifted his man- 
tle behind him. On each side of him walked his 
favourite knights, and their squires with them, all 
on their way to the King’s quarters, where a council 
of war was to be held, since it was known how the 
great German host had been routed, and that the 
Emperor himself might follow Duke Frederick of 
Suabia. This Duke had already reached the camp, 
after beating off the Seljuk skirmishers who had 
harassed his retreat and driven in the first fright- 
struck Germans. 

The soldiers and grooms made way for the noble, 
but he asked which might be the tent of Gilbert 
Warde, the Englishman; so they pointed to the 
raised flap, where Alric stood with his sturdy legs 
apart, under the shadow of Gilbert’s long shield, 


944 VIA CRUCIS 


which was hanging from a lance stuck in the ground. 
The shield was blank, though many gentlemen 
already painted devices on theirs, and sovereign 
lords displayed the heraldic emblems of their houses 
long before their vassals began to use their coats- 
of-arms on their shields in war. But Gilbert would 
bear neither emblem nor device till some great deed 
should make him famous. 

The Count of Montferrat glanced at the blank shield 
thoughtfully, and asked little Alric of what family 
his master was; and when he heard that his fore- 
fathers had been with Robert the Devil when he 
died, and with William at Hastings, and with God- 
frey at Jerusalem, and that his father had died 
fighting for Mand against the usurper, but that 
Gilbert had not knighthood for all that, he wondered 
gravely. Yet knowing that he was hurt and ill at 
ease, the Count would not go in, but gave Alric a 
piece of gold and bade him greet the young Lord 
of Stoke and tell him that the Count of Montferrat 
craved better acquaintance with him when he should 
be recovered. 

He went on his way, and was not gone far when 
the Count of Savoy and the lord of fated Coucy 
came strolling side by side, with their trains of 
knights and squires, on their way to the council. 
And having seen Montferrat stop at the tent, they did 
likewise, and asked the same questions, giving Alric 
money out of respect for his master’s brave deed 
and good name, according to custom. Many others 
came after them, great and small, and the great gave 
the groom money, and the poor men-at-arms asked 


VIA CRUCIS 245 


him to drink with them after supper; so that his flat 
leathern wallet, which was cracking in its creases 
from having been long empty, was puffed out and 
hard, and weighed heavily at his helt, and as for 
the wine promised him, he might have floated a boat 
in it. : 

There was one of the Greek guides who stood near 
the tent, playing with a string of thick beads, and 
keeping behind Alric; and when there was a crowd 
around him this Greek slipped nearer, with his razor 
in the palm of his hand, and stealthily tried to 
cut the thongs by which the wallet was fastened. 
So the Saxon turned quickly and smote him be- 
tween the eyes with his fist, and it was an hour 
before the Greek came to himself and crawled away, 
for nobody would lift him. But Alric laughed often 
as he sucked the trickling blood from his knuckles, 
and though he was a little man and young, the 
soldiers looked at him with respect, and many more 
of them asked him to drink. 

So on that afternoon Gilbert’s reputation grew 
suddenly, as a bright lily that has been long in bud 
under a wet sky breaks out like a flame in the first 
sunshine; and the days were over when he must 
trudge along unnoticed in the vast throng of 
nobles, with his two men and his modest baggage. 

Meanwhile the council was held in the King’s 
tent of state, within which three hundred nobles sat 
at ease after the King himself had taken his place 
on the throne, with the Queen on his right hand. 
There the red-bearded Frederick of Suabia, nephew to 
Conrad and famous afterward as the Emperor Bar- 


246 VIA CRUCIS 


barossa, stood up and told his tale: how the wild Ger- 
man knights had truly forced their leaders to take the 
mountain road and fight the Seljuks at a disad- 
vantage; how the Seljuks appeared and disappeared 
again from hour to hour, falling upon their prey 
at every turn, reddening every pass with blood, and 
leaving half-killed men among the slain to wonder 
whence the swift smiters had come and whither they 
were gone. He himself had wounds not healed, 
and he told how, day by day, the mad bravery of 
the Germans, and the fury of his Black Forest 
men-at-arms, had risen again and again to very 
desperation, to sink before evening in a new defeat; 
until, at last, as the Seljuk swords still killed and 
killed, a terror had fallen upon the host in the 
passes, and men had thrown away their armour and 
fled like rats from a burning granary, so that their 
leaders could not hold them. He, with a few strong 
helpers, had covered his flying troops, and the brave 
Emperor Conrad, giant in strength, the greatest 
swordsman of the world, was even now fighting at 
the hindmost rear of the army to save whom he 
could. 

It had been madness, he told them all, to try the 
mountain ways. ‘To Palestine there were two roads, 
and they might choose between them, either following 
the long coast round Asia Minor to the Gulf of Cyprus, 
or else, going down to the Propontis, they might get 
ships from Constantinople and sail to the ports of 
Syria. The short way was death, and though death 
were nothing, it meant failure and destruction to 
the Christian power in Jerusalem and Antioch. 


VIA CRUCIS 247 


Thus he spoke, and the King and Queen and all 
the great nobles heard him in silence. There were 
the great Counts of Flanders and Toulouse, of 
Savoy, of Montferrat and Dreux and Blois, and the 
lords of Lusignan, of Coucy, of Courtenay, and of ° 
Bourbon, and the Bishops of Toul and Metz, and 
all the great knights of Gascony and Poitou, with 
many others of high name and good blood, who heard 
the red-bearded Duke speak. But when he had 
finished, none answered him, and the French King sat 
on his throne, repeating the prayers for the dead in 
a low voice. But Eleanor’s eyes flashed fire and her 
gloved hand strained impatiently upon the carved 
arm of the chair of state. 

“Requiem eternam dona eis,” muttered the King. 

“Amen!” responded Eleanor, in a clear, con- 
temptuous voice. “And now that prayers are over, 
let us do deeds. Let us mount and ride forth at 
dawn to meet the Emperor, and help him in his need 
at the last. Let us ride in even order, sending out 
scouts and skirmishers before us, and keeping good 
watch, armed and ready at all moments. ‘Then, 
when all are safe who are alive, we will return here, 
that the Germans may rest themselves by this good 
lake; and afterward we will set forth again by the 
safest road, cautiously, not wasting upon skirmishes 
the strength we shall need hereafter for a great 
victory.” 

“The Emperor will surely be here to-morrow, 
without our help,” said the King, in manifest dis- 
content. “It is of no use to go and meet him.” 

“If he is so near, let us mount to-night, this 


248 VIA CRUCIS 


very hour, rather than have on us the shame of lying 
idly here while men who wear the cross are in need 
of us.” 

The King said nothing, but at Eleanor’s words a 
low murmur of assent ran through the assembly 
of brave men, from those at her feet to those 
farthest from her; and the impatient touch of each 
hand on sword or dagger, at the thought of fight, 
made a sound of softly moving steel and leather 
and buckle, which one may only hear among soldiers. 

Eleanor stood up, untired by her terrible ride, 
unshaken by her fall, her eyes full of the bright- 
ness of pride. It was her daily food and her 
perpetual necessity to have the better of the King. 
in the eyes of men, whether the matter were great or 
small. She stood up to her height, as if to show all 
her beauty and strength to the world, and the low 
sun streamed through the wide entrance to the tent 
and fell full upon her face and her unblinking 
eyes. 

“My lords and barons, gentlemen of Guienne and 
France, our journey is over to-day, our battles begin 
to-morrow! Our brothers are in danger, the enemy 
is in sight! Men of the Cross, to arms!” 

“To arms!” rang the reply in many voices, both 
high and deep, like a major chord sounding from 
the heart. 

As she rose, the nobles had risen, too, and only 
the King kept his seat, his pale face bent, his hands 
folded upon the hilt of the sword that stood between 
his knees. The Queen said no more, and, without 
glancing at her husband, as if she alone were sover- 


VIA CRUCIS 249 


eign, she descended the two steps from the throne 
to the floor of the tent. Three knights, one of Gas- 
cony, one of Poitou, and one of her own Guienne, 
who were her guard of honour, followed her as she 
passed out, smiling to the great nobles on her right 
and left. And many showed that they desired to 
speak with her—first among them the Count of 
Montferrat. 

“Madam,” he said, when he had bowed low before 
her, “I praise God and the Holy Trinity that your 
Grace is alive to-day. I pray that you will deign 
to accept the homage and felicitations of Mont- 
ferrat !” 

“Of Bourbon, Madam!” cried a voice beside her. 

“Of Savoy, your Grace!” said another. 

“Of Coucy, of Courtenay, of Metz —”’ the voices 
all rang at once, as the lords pressed round her, for 
she had not been seen since she had left the field 
after her fall. 

“‘T thank you,” she answered, witha careless smile. 
“But you should thank also the man who saved my 
life, if you love me.”’ 

“Madam, we have,” replied Montferrat. “ And if 
your Grace will but let me have the man, I will 
do him much honour for your Highness’s sake.” 

“He is no vassal of mine,’ Eleanor said. “He 
is a poor English gentleman, cheated of his lands, 
a friend of young Henry Plantagenet.” 

“The friend of a boy!” The Count laughed 
lightly. 

But Eleanor grew thoughtful on a sudden, for 
beyond her rare beauty and her splendid youth, and 


250 VIA CRUCIS 


within her world of impatient passion, there were 
wisdom and knowledge of men. 

“A boy? Yes, he may be fourteen years old, 
not more. But there are boys who are not children, 
even in their cradles, and there are men who are 
nothing else—their swaddling-clothes outgrown, 
and their milk teeth cast, but not their whimpering 
and fretting.” 

The nobles were silent, for she spoke over-boldly 
and meant the King, as they knew. 

“As for this Englishman,” she continued after 
an instant’s pause, “he is not mine to give you, my 
lord Count. And as for doing him honour for his 
brave deed, though I would gladly please you, I 
should be loth to let you do my duty for your 
pleasure.” 

She smiled again very graciously, for she was 
glad that men should praise Gilbert Warde to her; 
and it was strangely pleasant to think that no one 
guessed half of what she would give him if he 
would take it. For among the nobles there were 
great lords, goodly men and young, who dreamed of 
her fair face, but would not have dared to lift up 
their eyes to her, 

So she passed out, with her knights behind her, 
and most of the lords and barons followed her at 
a distance, leaving the King within. 

When she was gone he rose slowly, and giving 
his sword to the chamberlain who stood waiting, he 
went to his chapel tent, with downcast eyes and 
clasped hands, as if walking in a solemn procession. 
A little bell rang, the sun was low, and it was the 


VIA CRUCIS 251 


hour of the Benediction. The King knelt down 
before the rich altar, and when he had prayed ear- 
nestly for strength and courage, and for wisdom to 
win the war of the Cross, he prayed from the bottom 
ot his unhappy heart that, if it were the will of 
Heaven, he might by some means be delivered from 
the woman of Belial who marred his life and bur- 
dened his soul. 


CHAPTER XVI 


To the south side of the camp the Germans came 
by thousands, all that day and far into the night, 
weary, half starved, on jaded beasts that could hardly 
set one foot before the other, or on foot themselves, 
reeling like men drunk, and almost blind with ex- 
haustion. But the panic had not lasted long, for 
the few score of Seljuk riders who had fallen upon 
the van of the retreating column for the last time had 
been finally scattered by the Duke of Suabia, so that 
the remainder of the army came in with a show of 
order, bringing the greater part of the baggage. 
The Seljuks had not attempted to carry away plun- 
der, which would have hampered them in their 
dashing charges and instant retreats. 

Last of ali, before daybreak, came the Emperor 
himself, covering the rear of his army with chosen 
men, untired, though his great horse was staggering 
under him, alert and strong as if he had not been 
in the saddle the better part of four days and nights. 
He seemed a man of iron; and few could ride with 
him, or watch with him, or fight with him. 

When the sun rose, the great standard of the Holy 
Roman Empire waved before the imperial tent, and 
though he had not rested, Conrad knelt beside King 
Louis at early mass. Far to southward the German 
tents rose in long lines by the shore of the lake, 

252 


VIA CRUCIS 253 


where Eleanor had displayed her troop on the 
previous day, and countless little squads of men 
with mules came and went between the camp and 
the distant walled city of Nicwa. In the French 
lines, where the first preparations had been made for 
marching, men were again unpacking their belong- 
ings; for word had gone round at midnight that the 
Emperor was safe, and needed no help, and would 
be in the camp in the morning. 

Then there was secret rejoicing among the ladies, 
and those who had no bruise nor scratch from 
yesterday’s accidents called their tirewomen and 
spent happy hours, holding up their little silver 
mirrors to their hair, and holding them down to see 
the clasp at the throat, and trying some of the silks 
and embroideries which they had received as gifts 
from the Greek Emperor. It was almost a miracle 
that none but Beatrix should have been gravely 
hurt, but many were a little bruised and much tired, 
and altogether inclined to ask sympathy of the 
rest, receiving visits in their tents and discussing 
the chances of the war and the beauty of Constanti- 
nople, until they began to discuss one another, after 
which the war was not spoken of again on that day. 

Then came the Queen with her attendants, from . 
her tent in the midst of the ladies’ lines, pitched as 
far as possible from the King’s; and leaving cutside 
those who were with her, she went in and sat 
down by Beatrix’s bedside. 

The girl was very pale and lay propped up by 
pillows, her eyelids half shut against the light, 
though there was little enough under the thick 


254 VIA CRUCIS 


double canvas and a brazier of glowing woodcoals made 
the tent almost too warm. A great Norman woman 
with yellow hair crouched beside her, slowly fanning 
her face with a Greek fan of feathers. The Queen 
stood still a moment, for she had entered softly, and 
Beatrix had not opened her eyes, nor had the woman 
known her in the dimness. But when she recog- 
nized the Queen, the maid’s jaw dropped and her 
hand ceased to move. Eleanor took the fan from 
her, and with a gesture bade her make way, and then 
sat down in her place to do her duty. 

Hearing the rustle of skirts and feeling that 
another hand fanned her, the sick girl moved a 
little, but did not open her eyes, for her head hurt 
her, so that she feared the light. 

“Who is it?” she asked in the voice of pain. 

“Eleanor,” answered the Queen, softly. 

Still fanning, she took the beautiful little white 
hand that lay nearest to her on the edge of the bed. 
Beatrix opened her eyes in wonder, for though the 
Queen was kind, she was not familiar with her ladies. 
The girl started, as if she would have tried to rise. 

“No,” said Eleanor, quieting her like a child, 
“no, no! You must not move, my dear. I have 
come to see how you are— there, there! I did not 
mean to startle you!”’ 

She smoothed the soft brown hair, and then, with 
a sudden impulse, kissed the pale forehead, and 
fanned it, and kissed it again, as if Beatrix had 
been one of her own little daughters instead of being 
a grown woman not very far from her own age. 

“TI thank your Grace,”’ said Beatrix, faintly. 


VIA CRUCIS 255 


“We are nearer than thanks since yesterday. Or 
if there were to be thanking, it should be from me 
to you who followed me with one other, when three 
‘hundred stayed behind. And we-are closer than 
that, for one man saved us both.”’ 

She stopped and looked round.’ The Norman 
woman was standing respectfully near the door of 
the tent, with eyes cast down and hands hidden 
under the folds of her skirt, which were drawn 
through her girdle in the servants’ fashion. 

“Go,” said Eleanor, quietly. “I will take care 
of your mistress for a while. And do not stay at 
the door of the tent, but go away.” 

The woman bent her head low and disappeared. 

“Yes,” Beatrix said, when they were alone, “I 
saw Gilbert Warde stop your horse, and yours 
stopped mine. He saved us both.” 

There was silence, and the fan moved softly in 
the Queen’s hand. 

“You have loved him long,’ 
in a tone that questioned. 

Beatrix did not answer at once, and on her smooth 
young forehead two straight lines made straight 
shadows that ended between her half-closed eyes. 
At last she spcke, with an effort. 

“Madam, as you have a soul, do not take him 
from me!” 

She sighed and withdrew her hand from Eleanor’s, 
as if by instinct. The Queen did not start, but for 
an instant her eyes gathered light into themselves 
and her mouth hardened. She glanced at the weak 
girl, broken and suffering, and looking so small 


? 


she said presently, 


956 VIA CRUCIS 


beside her, and she was angry that Gilbert should 
have chosen anything so pitiful against her own 
lofty beauty. But presently her anger ceased, not 
because it was unopposed, but because she was too 
large-hearted for any meanness. 

“Forget that I am the Queen,” she said at last. 
“Only remember that I am a woman and that we 
two love one man.” 

Beatrix shivered and moved uneasily on her pil- 
low, pressing her hand to her throat as if something 
choked her. 

“You are cruel!” Her voice would not serve her 
for more just then, and she stared at the roof of the 
tent. 

“Love is cruel,’ answered Eleanor, in a low voice, 
and suddenly the hand that held the fan dropped upon 
her knee, and her eyes looked at it thoughtfully. 

But Beatrix roused herself. There was more 
courage and latent energy in the slight girl than 
any one dreamed. Her words came clearly. 

“Yours is—not mine! For his sake you call 
yourself a woman like me, but for his sake only. 
Is your face nothing, is your power nothing, is it 
nothing that you can hide me from him at your 
pleasure, or let me see him as you will? What is 
any one to you, who ean toss a king aside like a 
broken toy when he thwarts you, who can make 
war upon empires with no man’s help, if you choose ? 
Is Gilbert a god that he should not yield to you? 
Is he above men that he should not forget me, and 
go to you, the most beautiful woman in the world, 
and the most daring, and the most powerful — to you, 


VIA CRUCIS ; 201 


Eleanor of Guienne, Queen of France? You have 
all; you want that one thing more which is all I 
have! You are right — love is cruel!” 

The Queen listened in silence, too generous still 
to smile at the girl, too much in earnest to be hurt. 

“A man has a right to choose for himself,” she 
answered when Beatrix paused at last. 

“Yes, but you take that right from him. You 
thrust a choice upon him — that is your cruelty.” 

“How?” 

“Look at me and look at yourself. Would any 
man think twice in choosing? And yet—” a faint 
smile flickered in the mask of pain — “in Constanti- 
nople — in the garden —” 

She stopped, happy for a moment in the memory 
of his defence of her. The Queen was silent and 
faintly blushed for her cruel speech on that day. 
She could have done worse deeds and been less 
ashamed before herself. But Beatrix went on. 

“ Besides,” she said, turning her suffering eyes 
to Eleanor’s face, “your love is sinful, mine is not.” 

The Queen’s look darkened suddenly. This was 
different ground. 

“Leave priests’ talk to priests,” she answered 
curtly. 

“It will soon be the talk of other men besides 
priests,” reproved Beatrix. 

“For that matter, are you better?” retorted the 
Queen. “Have you not told me that your father has 
married his mother? You are far within the forbidden 
degrees of affinity. You cannot marry Gilbert Warde 
any more than I can. Where is the difference ?” 

8 


258 VIA CRUCIS 


“You know it as well as I.” The young gir\ 
turned her face away. “You know as well as | 
that the Church can pass over what is a mere legal 
regulation to hinder marriages made only for for- 
tune’s sake. I am not so ignorant as you think. 
And you know what your love for Gilbert Warde 
is, before God and man!” 

The blood rose in her white face as she spoke. 
After that there was silence for some time; but 
presently the Queen began to fan Beatrix again, 
and mechanically smoothed the coverlet. There 
are certain things which a womanly woman would 
do for her worst enemy almost unconsciously, and 
Eleanor was far from hating her rival. Strong and 
unthwarted from her childhood, and disappointed 
in her marriage, she had grown to look upon her- 
self as a being above laws of heaven or earth, and 
answerable to no one for her deeds. Feminine in 
heart and passion, she was manlike in mind and in 
her indifference to opinion. Save for Gilbert, she 
liked Beatrix; yet, as matters stood, she both looked 
upon her as an obstacle and was sorry for her at 
the same time. Not being in any way confident 
of Gilbert’s love herself, the girl she pitied and half 
liked was as much her rival as the most beautiful 
woman in Europe could have been. She was made 
up of strong contrasts—generous yet often unfor- 
giving; strong as a man yet capricious as a child ; 
tender as a woman, and then in turn sudden, fierce, 
and dangerous as a tigress. 

Beatrix made a feeble gesture as if she would not be 
fanned by the hand that was against her, but the Queen 


VIA CRUCIS 259 


paid no attention to the refusal. The silence lasted 
long, and then she spoke quietly and thoughtfully. 

“You have a right to say what you will,” she 
‘began, “for I sat down beside you, as one woman 
by another, and you have taken me at my word. 
Love is the very blood of equality. You blame 
me, and I do not blame you, though I brought up 
the Church’s rule against your love. You are right 
in all you say, and I am sinful. I grant you that 
freely, and I will grant also that if I had my due 
I should be doing penance on my knees instead of 
defending my sins to you if indeed I am defending 
them. But do you think that our bad deeds are 
weighed only against the unattainable perfection of 
saints’ and martyrs’ lives, and never at all against 
the splendid temptations that are the royal garments 
of sin? God is just, and justice weaves a fair judg- 
ment. It is not an unchangeable standard. <A 
learned Greek in Constantinople was telling me the 
other day a story of one Procrustes, a terrible high- 
way robber. He had a bed which he offered to 
those he took captive, on condition that they should 
exactly fit its length ; and if a man was too long, the 
robber hewed off his feet by so much, but if he was 
too short, he stretched him on a rack until he was 
tall enough. If God were to judge me as He judges 
you, by a ruled length of virtue, alike for all and 
without allowance for our moral height, God would 
not be God, but Procrustes, a robber of souls and a 
murderer of them.” 

“You speak very blasphemously,” said Beatrix, 
in a low voice. 


260 VIA CRUCIS 


“No; I speak justly. You and I both love one 
man. In you, love is virtue, in me it is sin. You 
blame me with right, but you blame me too much. 
You tell me that I am beautiful, powerful, the Queen 
of France, and it is true. But even you do not tell 
me that I am happy, for you know that I am not.” 

“ And therefore you would rob me of all I have, 
to make your happiness, when you have so much 
that Ihave not! Is that your justice?” 

“No,” answered Eleanor, almost sadly, “it is not 
justice. It is my excuse to God and man, before 
whom you say I am condemned.” 

The girl roused herself again, and though it was 
sharp pain to move, she raised her weight upon her 
elbow and iooked straight into the Queen’s eyes. 

“You argue and you make excuses,” she said 
boldly. “I ask for none. I ask only that you 
should not take the one happiness I have out of my 
life. You say that we are speaking as woman to 
woman. What right have you to the man I love? 
No, do not answer me with another dissertation on 
the soul. Woman to woman, tell me what right 
you have?” 

“Ti he loves me, is that no right?” 

“If he loves you? Oh, no! He does not love 
you yet!” 

“He saved me yesterday —not you,” answered 
the Queen, cruelly, and she remembered his eyes. 
“Does a man risk his life desperately, as he did, for 
the woman he loves, or for another, when both are 
in like danger?” 

“Tt was not you, it was the Queen he saved. It 


VIA CRUCIS 261 


is right that a loyal man should save his sovereign 
first. 1 do not blame him. I should not have 
blamed him had I been more hurt than I am.” 

**T am not his sovereign, and he is no vassal of 
mine.” Eleanor smiled coldly. “He isan English- 
man.” 

“ You play with words,” answered Beatrix, as she 
would have spoken to an equal. 

‘Take care)” 

They faced each other, and on the instant the fierce 
pride of royalty sprang up, as at an insult. But 
Beatrix was brave —a sick girl against the Queer 
of France. | 

“Tf you are not his sovereign, you are not mine,” 
she said. ‘And were you ten times my Queen, 
there can be no fence of royalty between you and 
me from this hour, or if there is, you are doubly 
playing with the meaning of what your lips say. 
Are you to be a woman to me, a woman, at one 
moment, and a sovereign to me, a subject, at the 
next? Which is it to be?” 

“A woman, then, if nothing more. And as a 
woman, I tell you that I will have Gilbert Warde 
for myself, body and soul.” 

The girl’s eyes lightened suddenly. Men said that 
in her mother’s veins there had run some of the 
Conqueror’s blood, and his great oath sprang to her 
lips as she answered : — 

“ And by the splendour of God, I tell you that 
you shall not!” 

“Then it is a duel between us,” the Queen said, 
and she turned to go. 


262 VIA CRUCIS 


“To death,” answered the girl, as her head sank 
back upon the pillows, pitifully weak and tired in 
her aching body, but dauntless in spirit. 

Eleanor crossed the carpeted floor of the tent 
slowly toward the door. She had not made four 
steps when she stood still, looking before her. A 
great shame of herself came upon her for what she 
had said —the loyal, generous shame of the strong 
who in anger has been overbearing with the weak. 
She stood still, and she felt as an honest man does 
who has struck a fallen enemy in unreasoning rage. 
It was the second time that she had fallen so low 
in her own eyes, and her own scorn of herself was 
more than she could bear. 

Quickly she came back to Beatrix’s side. The 
girl lay quite still, with parted lips and closed eyes 
that had great black shadows under them. Her 
small white hands twitched now and then spasmodi- 
cally, but she seemed hardly to breathe. Eleanor 
knelt beside her and propped her up higher, thrust- 
ing one arm under the pillow while she fanned her 
with the other hand. 

“Beatrix!” she called softly. 

She thought that the girl’s eyelids quivered, 
and she called her again; but there was no answer, 
nor any movement of the hand this time, and 
the face was so white and deathly that any one 
might have believed life gone, but for the faintly 
perceptible breath that stirred the feathers of the 
Greek fan when the Queen held it close to the lips. 
She grew anxious and thought of calling the Nor- 
man serving-woman and of sending for her own 


VIA CRUCIS 263 


physician. But, in the first place, she thought that 
Beatrix might have only fainted, to revive at any 
moment, in which case she had things to say which 
were not for other ears; and as for her physician, 
it suddenly occurred to her that, although he had 
been in her train five years, she had never under any 
circumstances had occasion to consult him, and that 
he was probably what he looked, a solemn fool and 
an ignorant drencher, whereas there were younger 
men with wise heads who had followed the army and 
made a fat living by concocting draughts for those 
who overcloyed themselves with Greek sweetmeats, 
physicians who could make salves for bruises, who 
knew the cunning Italian trick of opening a vein in 
the instep instead of in the arm, and who, on occa- 
sion, could cast a judicial figure of the heavens and 
interpret the horoscope of the day and hour. 

But while she hesitated, Eleanor brought water 
from a bright brass ewer and dashed drops upon 
the girl’s face; she found also a cup with Greek 
wine in it, that smelt of fine resin, and she set it to 
the pale lips and held it there. Presently Beatrix 
opened her eyes a little, and suddenly she shuddered 
when she saw Eleanor and heard her voice in the 
deep stillness. 

“As one woman to another —I ask your forgive- 
ness.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


GILBERT sat in the door of his tent at noon, the sun 
shining down upon him and warming him pleasantly, 
for the day was chilly, and he was still aching. As 
he idly watched the soldiers going and coming, and 
cooking their midday meal at the camp-fires, while 
Dunstan and Alric were preparing his own, he was 
thinking that this was the third day since he had 
saved the Queen’s life, and that although many 
courtiers had asked of his condition, and had talked 
with him as if he had done a great deed, yet he had 
received not so much as a message of thanks from 
Eleanor nor from the King, and it seemed as if he 
had been forgotten altogether. But of Beatrix, Dun- 
stan told him that she was in a fever and wandering, 
and the Norman woman had said that she talked of her 
home. Gilbert hated himself because he could do 
nothing for her, but most bitterly because he had 
yielded to the Queen’s eyes and to her voice in the 
instant of balanced life and death. 

The great nobles passed on their way to their tents 
from the King’s quarters, where the council met daily 
to trace the march. And still Gilbert’s shield hung 
blank and white on his lance, and he sat alone, with- 
out so much as a new mantle upon him, nor a sword- 
belt, nor any gift to show that the royal favour had 
descended upon him as had been expected. So some 

264 


VIA CRUCIS 265 


of the nobles only saluted him with a grave gesture 
in which there was neither friendship nor familiarity, 
and some took no notice of him, turning their faces 
away, for they thought that they had made a mistake, 
and that the Englishman had given some grave 
offence for which even his brave action was not a 
sufficient atonement. But he cared little, for his 
nature was not a courtier’s, and even then the Eng- 
lish Normans were colder and graver men than those 
of France, and more overbearing in arms, but less 
self-seeking, one against another, in court. 

Dunstan came from behind the tent, where the fire 
was, bringing food in two polished brass bowls, and 
Gilbert went in to eat hisdinner. Coarse fare enough 
it was, a soup of vegetables and bread, with pieces of 
meat in it, and little crumbs of cheese, scraped off 
with a sharp knife, and floating on the thick liquid; 
and then, in the other bowl, small gobbets of roasted 
beef run by sixes on wooden skewers that were 
blackened at the ends by the fire. And it all tasted 
of smoke, for the wood was yet green on the hill- 
sides. But Gilbert ate and said nothing, neither 
praising nor blaming, for very often on the long 
march he had eaten the dried bread of the German 
peasants and the unleavened wheat-cakes of the wild 
Hungarians, with a draught of water, and had been 
glad even of that. Also on Fridays and Saturdays, 
and on the vigils of feast days, and on most days in 
Lent, he had eaten only bread and boiled vegetables, 
such as could be found, and the fasting reminded him 
of the old days in Sheering Abbey. 

For in his nature there was the belief of that age 


266 VIA CRUCIS 


in something far above common desires and passions, 
dwelling in a temple of the soul that must be reached 
by steps of pain; there was the spirit of men who 
starved and scourged their bodies almost to death 
that their souls might live unspotted ; and the terri- 
bly primitive conception of every passional sin as 
equal in importance to murder, and only less deadly 
than an infamous crime in the semi-worldly view of 
knightly honour, which admitted private vengeance 
as a sort of necessity of human nature. 

The mere thought that he could love the Queen, or 
could have believed that he loved her for one instant, 
seemed ten thousand times worse than his boyish 
love of Beatrix had once seemed, when he had sup- 
posed that there was no means of setting aside the 
bar of affinity; and it was right that he should think 
so. But though temptation is not sin, he made it 
that, and accused himself; for it was manifest that 
the merest passing thrill of the blood, such as he had 
felt on that night in Vézelay, and now again, must 
be an evil thing, since it had brought about such a 
great result in a dangerous moment. 

These were small things, and nice distinctions, that 
a strong man should dwell on them and bruise his 
heart for its wickedness. But they were not smallif to 
neglect them meant the eternity of torture that awaited 
him who looked upon his neighbour’s wife to covet 
her. ‘There were among the nobles who had taken 
the Cross not a few to whom the law seemed less 
rigid and perdition less sure, and Eleanor herself 
gave her sins gentle names; but the Englishman was 
old-fashioned, and even the good Abbot of Sheering 


VIA CRUCIS 267 


had been struck by his literal way of accepting all 
beliefs, in the manner of a past time when the world 
had trembled at the near certainty of the Last Judg- 
ment, expiating its misdeeds by barefooted pilgrim- 
ages to Jerusalem, and its venial faults by cruel 
macerations of the flesh. 

Gilbert, therefore, looked upon all bodily weariness 
and suffering and privation which he chanced to 
encounter on the march as so much penance to be 
borne cheerfully because it should profit his soul ; 
and while the young blood coursed in his veins, and 
youth’s bright lights danced in his eyes, the cold spirit 
of the ascetic fought against the warm life toward 
an end which the man felt rather than saw, and of 
which the profound melancholy would have appalled 
him, could he have realized it. 

As month followed month, though his strength 
increased upon him under much labour, and though 
his cheeks were tanned by sunshine and weather, the 
broad forehead grew whiter under his cap, and more 
thoughtful, and his eyes were saddened and his fea- 
tures more spiritual; also, while he longed daily to 
draw his sword and strike great blows at unbeliev- 
ers for faith’s sake and to the honouring of the Holy 
Cross, the rough fighting instinct of his people, that 
craved to see blood for its redness and to take the 
world for 'ove of holding it, no longer awoke sud- 
denly in him, like hunger or thirst, at the wayward 
call of opportunity. He could not now have plucked 
out steel to hew down men, as he had done on that 
spring morning among the flowers of the Tuscan 
valley, only because it was good to see the dazzling 


268 VIA CRUCIS 


red line follow the long quick sword-stroke, and to 
ride weight at weight to overthrow it, swinging the 
death-scythe through the field of life. He wanted 
the cause and the end now, where once he had de- 
sired only the deed, and he had risen another step 
above the self that had been. 

He knew it, and nevertheless, as he sat still after 
he had eaten his midday meal, he saw that his years 
had been very sad since his first great sorrow; and 
each time when he thought he had gone forward 
some strong thing had driven him back, or some 
great grief had fallen upon him, and he himself had 
almost been forced down. He had been proud of 
his arms and his boyish skill at Faringdon, and 
before his eyes his father had been foully slain; he 
had faced the murderer in the cause of right, and he 
himself had been half killed ; he had believed in his 
mother as in heaven, and she had defiled his father’s 
memory and robbed her son of his inheritance ; he 
had sought peace in Rome, and had found madness 
and strife; he had desired to do knightly deeds and 
had killed men for nothing; he loved a maiden with 
a maiden heart, and at the touch of a faithless woman 
his blood rose in his throat, and for a look of hers 
and a tone of her voice he had put forth his hands to 
grapple with sudden death, forgetting the other, the 
better, the dearer. 

So he was thinking, and the door of his tent 
was darkened for a moment, so that he looked 
up. ‘There stood one of Queen Eleanor’s attendant 
knights, in tunic and hose, one hand on his sword- 
hilt, the other holding his round cap in the act of 


VIA CRUCIS 269 


salutation. He was a Gascon, of middle height, spare 
and elastic as a steel blade, dark as a Moor, with 
fiery eyes and thin black mustaches that stuck 
up like a cat’s whiskers. His manner was exag- 
gerated, and he made great gestures, ‘but he was a 
true man and brave. Gilbert rose to meet him, and 
saw behind him a soldier carrying something small and 
heavy on one shoulder, steadying it with his hand. 

“The Lord of Stoke?” the knight began in a tone 
of inquiry. 

“Tf I had my own, sir,” answered the Englishman, 
“but I have not. My name is Gilbert Warde.” 

“Sir Gilbert —” began the Gascon, bowing again 
and waving the hand that held his cap in a tremen- 
dous gesture, which ended on his heart as if to ex- 
press thanks for the information. 

“No, sir,” interrupted the other. ‘“ Of those whe 
would have given me knighthood I would not have 
it, and they of whom I would take it have not 
offered it.” 

“ Sir,” answered the knight, courteously, “ those of 
whom you speak cannot have known you. I come 
from her Grace the Duchess of Gascony.” 

“The Duchess of Gascony?” asked Gilbert, un- 
accustomed to the title. 

The knight drew himself up till he seemed to be 
standing on his toes, and his hand left his sword-hilt 
to give his mustache a fierce upward. twist. 

“The Duchess of Gascony, sir,” he repeated. 
“There are a few persons who call her Highness the 
Queen of France, doubtless without meaning to give 
offence.” 


270 VIA CRUCIS 


Gilbert smiled in spite of himself, but the knight’s 
eyes took fire instantly. 

“Do you laugh at me, sir?” he asked, his hand 
going back to his sword, and his right foot advancing 
a little as if he meant to draw. 

“No, sir. I crave your pardon if I smiled, admir- 
ing your Gascon loyalty.” 

The other was instantly pacified, smiled too, and 
waved his long arm several times. 

“IT come, then, from her Grace the Duchess,” he 
said, insisting on the title, “to express to you her 
sovereign thanks for the service you did her the 
other day. Her Grace has been much busied by 
the councils, else she would have sent me sooner.” 

“TIT am most respectfully grateful for the mes- 
sage,” answered Gilbert, rather coldly, “and I beg 
you, sir, to accept my appreciation of the pains you 
have taken to bring it to me.” 

“Sir, [ am most wholly at your service,” replied 
the knight, again laying his hand upon his heart. 
“But besides words the Duchess sends you, by 
my hand, a more substantial evidence of her grati- 
tude.” 

He turned and took the heavy leather bag from 
his attendant soldier, and offered it to Gilbert, hold- 
ing it out in his two hands, and coming nearer. 
Gilbert stepped back when he saw what it was. 
The money was for a deed which might have cost 
Beatrix her life. He felt sick at the sight of it, as 
if it had been as the price of blood which Judas took. 
His face turned very pale under his tan, and he 
clasped his hands together nervously. 


VIA CRUCIS 271 


“No,” he said quickly, “no, I pray you! Not 
money — thanks are enough! ” 

The knight looked at him in surprise at first, and 
then incredulously, supposing that it was only a first 
refusal, for the sake of ceremony. 

‘¢ Indeed,” he answered, “it is the Duchess’s com- 
mand that I should present you with this gift in most 
grateful acknowledgment of your service.” 

“And I beg you, by your knighthood, to thank 
her Grace with ali possible respect for what I can- 
not receive.” Guilbert’s voice grewhard. “She isnot 
my sovereign, sir, that I should look to her for my 
support in this war. It pleased God that I should 
save a lady’s life, but I shall not take a lady’s gold. 
I mean no discourtesy to her Grace, nor to you, sir.” 

Seeing that he was in earnest, the Gascon’s expres- 
sion changed, and a bright smile came into his sallow 
face, for he had found a man after his own heart. 
He threw the heavy bag toward the soldier, and it 
fell chinking to the floor before the man could reach 
it; and turning to Gilbert again, he held out his 
hand with less ceremony and more cordiality than, 
he had hitherto shown. 

‘With a little accent,” he said, “you might pass 
for a Gascon.” 

Gilbert smiled as he shook hands, for it was clear 
that the knight meant to bestow upon him the 
highest compliment he could put into words. 

“Sir,” answered the Englishman, “I see that we 
think alike in this matter. I pray you, let not the 
Queen be offended by the answer you shall give 
her from me; but I shall leave it to your courtesy 


272 VIA CRUCIS 


and skill to choose such words as you think best, for 
I am a poor speaker of compliments.”’ 

“The Duchess of Gascony shall think only the 
better of you when she has heard me, sir.” 

Thereupon, with a great gesture and a bow to 
which Gilbert gravely responded, the knight took 
his leave and went to the door; but then, suddenly 
forgetting all his manner, and with a genuine im- 
pulse, he turned, came back and seized Gilbert’s 
hand once more. 

“A little accent, my friend! If you only had a 
little accent!” 

His wiry figure disappeared through the door a 
moment later, and Gilbert was alone. He asked 
himself whether the Queen had meant to insult him, 
and he could not believe it. But presently, as he 
remembered all that had happened, it occurred to 
him that she might be ashamed of having shown him 
her heart in a moment of great danger, and now, as 
if to cover herself, she meant him to understand that 
he was nothing to her but a brave man who ought to 
be substantially and richly rewarded for having risked 
his life on her behalf. 

Strangely enough, the thought pleased him now, 
as much as the brutal offer of the gold had outraged 
his honourable feeling. It was far better, he reflected, 
that the Queen should act thus and help him to look 
upon her as a being altogether beyond his sphere, as 
she really was. After this, he thought, it would be 
impossible and out of the question that any look or 
touch of hers could send a thrill through him, like 
little rivers of fire, from his head to his heels. The 


VIA CRUCIS a3 


hand that had been held out to pay him money for 
its own life, must be as cold as a stone and as 
unfeeling. She was helping him to-be true. 

He shook himself and stretched his long arms as 
if awaking from sleep and dreaming. The motion 
hurt him, and he felt all his bruises at once, but there 
was a sort of pleasure in the pain, that accorded with 
his strange state of heart, and he did it a second 
time in order to feel the pain once more. 


T 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE knight, whose name was Gaston de Castignae, 
faithfully fulfilled Gilbert’s wishes, using certain 
ornate flourishes of language which the Englishman 
could certainly not have invented, and altogether 
expressing an absolute refusal in the most compliment- 
ary manner imaginable. ‘The Queen bade him return 
the gold to her seneschal without breaking the leaden 
seal that pinched the ends of the knotted strings 
together. When she was alone, her women being 
together in the outer part of the tent, she hid her 
face in her white hands, as she sat, and bending for- 
ward, she remained in that attitude a long time, 
with« ut moving. 

It was as Gilbert had thought. In the generous 
impulse that had prompted her to ask Beatrix’s for- 
giveness she had done what was hardest for her to do, 
in a sort of wild hope that, by insulting the man who 
had such strong attraction for her, she might send him 
away out of her sight forever. Had he accepted the 
money, she would assuredly have despised him, and 
contempt must kill all thoughts of love: but since he 
refused it, he must be angry with her, and he would 
either leave her army, and join himself to the Ger- 
mans during the rest of the campaign, or, at the very 
least, he would avoid her. 

But now that it was done and he had sent back the 

274 


VIA CRUCIS 275 


money in scorn, as she clearly understood in spite of 
her knight’s flowery speeches, she felt the shame of 
having treated a poor gentleman like a poor servant, 
‘and then the certainty that he must believe her un- 
grateful began to torment her, so that she thought of 
his face, and longed to see him with all her heart. 
For Beatrix’s sake and her own honour she would 
not send for him; but she called one of her women 
and sent for the Lady Anne of Auch, who bore 
the standard of the ladies’ troop, the same who had 
stopped her horse without a fall. In her the Queen 
had great faith for her wisdcm, for she had a man’s 
thoughts with a woman’s heart. 

She came presently, tall and grave as a stately 
cypress among silver birches and shimmering white 
poplar trees. 

“T have sent for you to ask you a question,” the 
Queen began, “or, perhaps, to ask your advice.” 

The Lady Anne bowed her head, and when 
Eleanor pointed to a folding-stool beside her, she sat 
down and waited, fixing her black eyes on a distant 
part of the tent. 

“You saw that young Englishman who stopped my 
horse,” the Queen began. “I wish to reward him. 
I have sent him five hundred pieces of gold, and he 
has refused to receive the gift.” 

The black eyes turned steadily to the Queen’s face, 
gazed at her for a moment, and then looked away 
again, while not a feature moved. There was silence, 
for Anne of Auch said nothing while Eleanor waited. 

“What shall I do now?” Eleanor asked after a 
long pause. 


276 VIA CRUCIS 


“* Madam,” answered the dark lady, smiling thought. 
fully, “I think that, since you have offered him gold 
first, he would refuse a kingdom if you should press 
it upon him now, for he is a brave man.” 

“Do you know him?” asked Eleanor, almost 
sharply, and her eyes hardened. 

“JT have seen him many times, but I have never 
spoken with him. We talk of him now and then, 
because he is unlike the other knights, mixing little 
with them in the camp and riding often alone on 
the march. They say he is very poor, and he is 
surely brave.” 

‘What does Beatrix de Curboil say of him?” The 
Queen’s voice was still sharp. 

‘Beatrix? She is my friend, poor girl. I never 
heard her speak of this gentleman.” 

“She is very silent, is she not?” 

‘“Oh,no! She is sometimes sad, and she has told me 
how her father took a second wife who was unkind 
to her, and she speaks of her own childhood as if she 
were the daughter of a great house. But that is all.” 

«And she never told you her stepmother’s name, 
and never mentioned this Englishman ?” 

“Never, Madam, I am quite sure. But she is 
often very gay and quick of wit, and makes us laugh, 
even when we are tired and hot after a day’s march 
and are waiting for our women; and sometimes she 
sings strange old Norman songs of Duke William’s 
day, very sweetly, and little Saxon slave songs which 
we cannot understand.” 

“ T have never heard her laugh nor sing, I think,” 
said Eleanor, thoughtfully. 


VIA CRUCIS HG 


“She is very grave before your Grace. I have 
noticed it. That may be the English manner.” 

“T think it is.” The Queen thought of Gilbert, 
and wondered whether he were ever gay. “But the 
question,” she continued, “is what am I to do for 
the man?” 

She spoke coldly and indifferently, but her eyes 
were watching the Lady Anne’s face. 

“ What should you do yourself?” she asked, as 
the noble woman made no answer. 

“T should not have sent him gold first,” replied 
Anne of Auch. “But since that cannot be undone, 
your Grace can only offer him some high honour, 
which may be an honour only, and not wealth.” 

“He is not even a knight!” 

“Then give him knighthood and honour too. 
Your Grace has made knights, — there is Gaston de 
Castignac, — and the fashion of receiving knighthood 
from the Church only, is past.” 

“T have heard him say that he would have it from 
his own liege sovereign, or not at all. He will not 
even set a device in his shield, as many are begin- 
ning to do, to show in the field that they are of good 
stock.” 

“Give him one, then—a device that shall be a 
perpetual honour to his house and a memory of a 
brave deed well done for a Queen’s sake.” 

“And then? Shall that be all?” 

* And then, if he be the man he seems, single him 
out for some great thing, and bid him risk his life 
again in doing it for ihe Holy Cross, and for your 
Grace’s sake.” 


278 VIA CRUCIS 


“That is good. Your counsel was always good. 
What thing shall I give him to attempt?” 

‘Madam, the Germans have been betrayed by 
the Greek Emperor’s Greek guides, and we our- 
selves have no others, so that we in turn shall be led 
to slaughter if we follow them. If it please your 
Grace, let this Englishman choose such men as he 
trusts, and go ever before our march, till we reach 
Syria, sending tidings back to us, and receiving 
them, and bearing the brunt of danger for us.” 

“That would be indeed an honourable part,” said 
the Queen, thoughtfully, and she turned slowly pale, 
careless of her lady’s straight gaze. “He can never 
live to the end of it,” she added, in a low voice. 

“Tt is better to die for the Cross than to die or 
live for any woman’s love,” said Anne of Auch, and 
there was the music of faith in her soft tones. 

The Queen glanced at her, wondering how much 
she guessed, and suddenly conscious that she herself 
had changed colour. 

“And what device shall I set in this man’s 
shield?” she asked, going back to the beginning, in 
order to avoid what touched her too closely. 

“A cross,” answered Anne. “ Let me see — why 
not your Grace’s own? The Cross of Aquitaine?” 

But the Queen did not hear, for she was dream- 
ing, and she saw Gilbert, in her thoughts, riding to 
sure death with a handful of brave men, riding into 
an ambush of the terrible Seljuks, pierced by their 
arrows —one in his white throat as he reeled back 
in the saddle, his eyes breaking in death. She 
shuddered, and then started as if waking. 


VIA CRUCIS 279 


“ What did you say?” she asked. “I was think- 
ing of something else.” 

_“T said that your Grace might give him the Cross 
of Aquitaine for a device,” answered the Lady of 
Auch. 

Her quiet black eyes watched the Queen, not in 
suspicion, but with a sort of deep and womanly 
sympathy; for she herself had loved well, and on 
the eighth day after she had wedded her husband, 
he had gone out with others against the Moors in 
the southern mountains; and they had brought him 
home on his shield, wrapped in salted hides, and 
she had seen his face. Therefore she had taken 
the Cross, not as many ladies had taken it, in light- 
ness of heart, but earnestly, seeking a fair death on 
the field of honour for the hope of the life to come. 

“ Yes,” said the Queen, “he shall have the Cross of 
Aquitaine. Fetchmesome gentleman or squire skilled 
with colours, and send for the Englishman’s shield.” 

“Madam,” said Anne of Auch, “I myself can use 
a brush, and by your leave I will paint the device 
under your eyes.” 

It was no uncommon thing in that day for a lady 
of France to understand such arts better than men, 
and Eleanor was glad, and ordered that the shield 
should be brought quickly, by two of the elder pages 
who were soon to be squires. 

But Alric, the groom, who lay in the shade out- 
side Gilbert’s tent, chewing blades of grass and wish- 
ing himself in England, would not let the messengers 
take the shield from the lance without authority, and 
he called Dunstan, who went and asked Gilbert what 


280 VIA CRUCIS 


he should do. So Gilbert came and stood in the door 
of his tent, and spoke to the young men. 

“We know nothing, sir, save that we are bidden 
to bring your shield to the Queen.’ 

“Take it. And you shall tell her Grace from me 
that I crave excuse if the shield be of an old fashion, 
with rounded shoulders, for it was my father’s ; and 
you shall say also that she has power to take it, but 
that I will not sell it, nor take anything in return 
for it.” 

The two young men looked at him strangely, as if 
doubting whether he were in his right mind. But 
as they went away together, the one who bore the 
shield said to the other that they should not give 
the message, for it was discourteous and might do 
harm to themselves. But the other was for telling 
the truth, since they could call Gilbert’s men to 
witness of the words. 

“ And if we are caught in a lie,” he said, “we 
shall be well beaten.” 

For they were young and were pages, not yet 
squires, and still under education. 

“ Also we shall be beaten if we say things un- 
courtly to the Queen,” retorted the first. 

‘This air smells of sticks,” said the other, as he 
sniffed, and laughed at his jest, but somewhat ner- 
vously. ; 

“ You shall speak for us,” concluded his companion, 
‘‘for you are the truth-teller.” 

So they came to the Queen, and laid the blank 
shield at her feet, and neither would say anything. 

“Saw you the gentleman to whom it belongs?” 
she asked. 


VIA CRUCIS 281 


*“ Yes, Madam!” they answered in one breath. 

* And said he anything? Have you no message ?”’ 
. “He said, Madam—” said one, and stopped short. 

“Yes, Madam, he said that we should tell your 
Grace —” . 

But the page’s courage failed him, and he stopped 
also. 

“What said he?” asked Eleanor, bending her 
brows. “Speak out!” 

“May it please your Grace, the gentleman said 
that it was his father’s shield.” 

“And that he craved excuse if it were of an old 
fashion,” added the other. 

*“ And that he would not sell it,’ concluded the 
one who was the bolder of the two. 

Then he shrank back, and his companion too, and 
they seemed trying to get behind each other; for the 
Queen’s eyes flashed wrath, and her beautiful lips 
parted a little over her gleaming teeth, that were 
tightly closed. But in an instant she was calm again, 
and she took money from her wallet and gave each 
page a piece of gold, and spoke quietly. 

“You are brave boys to give me such a message,” 
she said. ‘But if I chance to find out that you have 
changed it on the way, you shall each have as many 
blows as there are French deniers in a Greek bezant 
—and I doubt whether any one knows how many 
there may be.” 

“We speak truth, Madam,” said the two, in a 
breath, “and we humbly thank your Grace.” 

She sent them away, and sat looking at the shield 
at her feet, while Anne of Auch waited in silence. 


282 VIA CRUCIS 


Eleanor’s eyes burned in her head, and her hands were 
cold, and would have shaken a little if she had not 
held them tightly clasped together. 

“Tt was unknightly of him to say that,” she cried 
at last, as if it hurt her. 

But her lady was still silent, and the Queen turned 
her hot eyes to her. 

“You say nothing. Was it not unknightly of 
him ?” 

“Madam,” answered Anne of Auch, “since you 
wished to pay him for your life, it is little wonder 
if he thinks you may offer to buy his arms.” 

They said no more for a long time, and from the 
outer tent the sweet subdued voices of many women, 
talking and laughing softly together, floated into the 
silence like the song of birds at dawn. At last the 
Queen spoke, but it was to herself. 

“ He had the right,” she said bitterly, and bent 
her head a little, and sighed. “ Paint me the shield, 
Lady Anne,” she added, a moment later, looking up 
calmly once more. “On a field azure, for the 
faith he keeps, gild him the cross flory of Aquitaine 
—for me!” 

She rose and began to walk slowly up and down 
the tent, glancing at Anne from time to time. The 
lady had sent for her colours, ground on a piece of 
white marble, and a small chafing-dish with burning 
coals, in which a little copper pot of melted wax mixed 
with resin stood on an iron tripod. She warmed her 
brush in the wax, and took up the costly blue on it, 
and spread it very dexterously over all the long shield. 
When it was cool, the resin made it very hard, and 


VIA CRUGIS 288 


with rule and dividers she measured out the cross 
with its equal arms, all flowered, and drew it skil- 
fully, while the Queen watched her deft fingers. 
And last of all she moistened the cross with Arabian 
gum, a little at a time, and laid strong gold-leaf upon 
it with a sharp steel instrument, blowing hard upon 
each leaf as soon as it was laid, to press it down, and 
smoothing it with a hare’s-foot. When it was all 
covered and dry, she took a piece of soft leather 
wrapped about her forefinger, and carefully went 
round the outline, taking off the superfluous leaf 
that spread beyond the gummed part. She had 
learned these things from an Italian who had come 
to Auch to adorn the chapel of her father’s house. 

The Queen had sat down long before it was finished, 
but her eyes followed the Lady Anne’s brush and her 
fingers, while neither of the women spoke. 

“Tt ig a fair shield,” said Eleanor, when it was 
done. ‘Lady Anne, shall I send it to him, or shall 
he come here? Were you in my place, which should 
you do?” 

“Madam, I would send for the Englishman. 
From your Grace’s hands he cannot refuse honour.” 

Eleanor did not answer, but after a moment she 
rose and turned away. 

‘¢ Nor death,” she said iv a low voice, as to herself, 
and stood still, and pressed her hand to her fore- 
head. ‘Send for him, and leave me alone till he 
comes, but stay when he is here,” she added, in clear 
tones; and stili not looking at the Lady Anne, she 
bent her head and went out. 

The tall, old-fashioned shield stood on its point, 


284 VIA CRUCIS 


leaning against the table. Eleanor looked at it, and 
her features were moved, now that she was alone, 
and her eyes were veiled. She lifted it in both her 
hands, wondering at its weight, and she pushed aside 
an inner curtain and set the shield upon an altar that 
was there, hidden from the rest of the tent for 
a little oratory, as in many royal chambers. Then 
she knelt down at the kneeling-stool and folded her 
hands. 

She was not ungenerous, she was not at heart 
unjust; she deserved some gentleness of judgment, 
for she was doing her best to fight her love, for her 
royal honour’s sake and for the sick girl who seemed 
so poor a rival, but who loved Gilbert Warde as well 
as she and less selfishly. As she knelt there, she 
believed that she was in the great struggle of her 
life, and that at once and forever she could make 
the sacrifice, though it had grown to be a great one. 

She meant to send him before the army, and the 
wager for his death was as a hundred to one. Let 
him die —that was the consecration of the sacrifice. 
Dead in glory, dead for Christ’s sake, dead in the 
spotless purity of his young knighthood, she could 
love him fearlessly thereafter, and speak very gentle 
words upon his grave. It was not cruel to send him 
to die thus, if his days weve numbered, and he him- 
self would gratefully thank her for preferring him 
before others to lead the van of peril; for the way 
of the Cross leads heavenwards. But if he should 
come alive through the storm of swords, he must win 
great honour for all his life. 

Thereupon she prayed for him alone, and she 


VIA CRUCIS 285 


dedicated his great shield on her own altar, in her own 
words, with all her passionate heart, wherein beat 
the blood of her grandsire, dead in a hermit’s cell 
after much love and war, and the blood of the son 
she was to bear long after, whom men ‘were to call 
the Lion- Hearted. 

And she prayed thus, with a pale face : — 

“ Almighty God, most just, who art the truth, and 
who orderest 2ood against evil, with pain, that men 
may be saved by overcoming, help me to give up 
what is most dear in my life. Hear me, O God, a 
sinful woman, and have mercy uponme! Hear me, 
O God, and though I perish, let this man’s soul be 
saved ! 

‘Lord Jesus Christ, most pitiful and kind, to Thee 
I bring my sin, and I steadfastly purpose to be faith- 
ful, and to renounce and abhor my evil desires and 
thoughts. Hear me, O Christ, a sinful woman! 
To Thy service and to the honour of Thy most 
sacred Cross, I dedicate this true man. Bless Thou 
this shield of his, that it may be between him and 
his enemies, and his arms, also, that he may go before 
our host, and save many, and lead us to Thy holy 
place in Jerusalem! Endue him with grace, fill him 
with strength, enlighten his heart. Hear me and 
help me, O Christ, a sinful, loving woman! 

“ Holy Spirit of God, Most High, Creator, Com- 
forter, let Thy pure gifts descend upon this clean- 
hearted man, that his courage fail not in life, nor 
in the hour of death. Hear me, a sinful woman, 
Thou who, with the Father and the Son, livest and 
reignest in glory forever!” 


286 VIA CRUCIS 


When she had prayed, she knelt a little while 
longer, with bowed head pressing against her 
clasped hands on the praying-stool till they hurt 
her. And that was the hardest, for it had been > 
her meaning to make a solemn promise, and she 
saw between her and her love the barrier of her 
faith to be kept to God, and of her respect of her 
own plighted honour. 

Rising at last, she took the shield again, and 
kissed it once between the arms of the cross; and 
her lips made a small mark on the fresh gold- 
leaf. 

“He will never know what it is,” she said to 
-herself, as she looked at the place, ‘“ but I think that 
‘no arrow shall strike through it there, nor any 
lance.” 

Suddenly she longed to kiss the shield again, and 
many times, to thousands, as if her lips could give it 
tenfold virtue to defend. But she thought of her 
prayer and would not, and she brought the shield 
back into the tent, out of the oratory, and set it 
upright against the table. 

Then, after a time, Anne of Auch lifted the 
curtain to let Gilbert in, standing by the entrance 
when he had passed her. 

He bent his head courteously but not humbly, 
and then stood upright, pale from what he had 
suffered, his eyes fixed as if he were making 
an inward effort. ‘The Queen spoke, coldly and 
clearly. 

“ Gilbert Warde, you saved my life, and you have 
sent back a gift from me. I have called you to 


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VIA CRUCIS 287 


give you two things. You may scorn the one, but 
the other you cannot refuse.” 

He looked at her, and within her outward cold- 
ness he saw something he had never seen before 
—something divinely womanly, unguessed in his 
life, which touched him more than her own touch 
had ever done. He felt that she drew him to her, 
though it were now against her better will. There- 
fore he was afraid, and angry with himself. 

‘¢ Madam,” he said, with a sort of fierce coldness, 
“Y need no gifts to poison your good thanks.” 

“Sir,” answered Eleanor, “there is no venom in 
the honour I mean for you. I borrowed your 
shield, your father’s honourable shield, —and I 
give it back to you with a device that was never 
shamed, that you and yours may bear my cross of 
Aquitaine in memory of what you did.” 

She took the shield and held it out to him with a 
look almost stern, and as her eyes fell upon it they 
dwelt on the spot she had kissed. Gilbert’s face 
changed, for he was moved. He knelt on one knee 
to receive the shield, and his voice shook. 

“ Madam, I will bear this device ever for your 
Grace’s sake and memory, and I pray that I may 
bear it honourably, and my sons’ sons after me.” 

Eleanor waited a breathing-space before she spoke 
again. 

“ You may not bear it long, sir,” she said, and 
her voice was less hard and clear, “for I desire of 
you a great service, which is also an honour before 
other men.” 

“ What I may do, I will do.” 


288 VIA CRUCIS 


“Take, then, at your choice two or three score 
lances, gentlemen and men-at-arms who are well 
mounted, and ride ever a day’s march before the 
army, spying out the enemy and sending messengers 
constantly to us, as we shall send to you; for I trust 
not the Greek guides we have. So you shall save us 
all from the destruction that overtook the German 
Emperor in the mountains. Will you do this?” 

Again Gilbert’s face lightened, for he knew the 
danger and the honour. 

“TJ will do it faithfully, so help me God.” 

Then he would have risen, but the Queen spoke 
again. 

“Lady Anne,” she said, “give me the sword of 
Aquitaine.” 

Anne of Auch brought the great blade, in its 
velvet scabbard, with its cross-hilt bound with 
twisted wire of gold for the old Duke’s grip. The 
Queen drew it slowly and gave back the sheath. 

“Sir,” she said, “I will give you knighthood, that 
you may have authority among men.” 

Gilbert was taken unawares. He bowed his head 
in silence, and knelt upon both knees instead of on 
one only, placing his open hands together. The 
Queen stood with her left hand on the hilt of the 
great sword, and she made the sign of the cross 
with her right. Gilbert also crossed himself, and 
so did the Lady Anne, and she knelt at the Queen’s 
left, for it was a very solemn rite. Then Eleanor 
spoke. 

“Gilbert Warde, inasmuch as you are about to 
receive the holy order of knighthood at my hands 


VIA CRUCIS 289 


without preparation, consider first whether you are 
in any mortal sin, lest that be an impediment.” 

* On the honour of my word, I have no mortal sin 
upon my soul,” answered Gilbert. 

“‘ Make, then, the promises of knighthood. Promise 
before Almighty God that you will lead an honest and 
a clean life.” 

“I will so live, God helping me.” 

‘Promise that to the best of your strength you 
will defend the Christian faith against unbelievers, 
and that you will suffer death, and a cruel death, 
but not deny the Lord Jesus Christ.” 

“T will be faithful to death, so God help me.” 

“Promise that you will honour women, and pro- 
tect them, and shield the weak, and at all times be 
merciful to the poor, preferring before yourself all 
those who are in trouble and need.” 

“T will, by God’s grace.” 

“Promise that you will be true and allegiant to 
your liege sovereign.” 

“T promise that I will be true and allegiant to my 
liege Queen and Lady, Maud of England, and to her 
son and Prince, Henry Plantagenet, and thereof your 
Grace is witness.” 

« And between my hands, as your liege sovereign’s 
proxy, lay your hands.” 

Gilbert held out his joined hands to the Queen, 
and she took them between her palms, while Anne 
of Auch held the great sword, still kneeling. 

“T put my hands between the hands of my Lady, 
Queen Maud of England, and I am her man,” said 
Gilbert Warde. 


U 


290 VIA CRUCIS 


But Eleanor’s touch was like ice, and she trembled 
a little. 

Then she took the sword of Aquitaine and held it 
up in her right hand, though it was heavy, and she 
spoke holy words. 

“Gilbert Warde, be a true knight in life and 
death! ‘Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever 
things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatso- 
ever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, 
whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any 
virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these 
things’ — and do them, and for them live and die.” 

When she had spoken, she laid the sword flat upon 
his left shoulder, and let it linger a moment, and then 
lifted it and touched him twice again, and sheathed 
the long blade. 

‘Sir Gilbert, rise!” 

He stood before her, and he knew what remained 
to be done, according to the rite, and it was not fire 
that ran through him, but a chill of fear. The 
Queen’s face was marble pale and as beautiful as 
death. One step toward him she made with out- 
stretched arms, her right above his left, her left 
under his right as he met her. Then she coldly 
kissed the man she loved on the cheek, once only, in 
the royal fashion, and he kissed her. 

She drew back, and their eyes met. Remembering 
many things, he thought that he should see in her 
face the evil shadow of his mother, as he had seen 
it before ; but he saw a face he did not know, for it 
was that of a suffering woman, coldly brave to the 
best of her strength. 


VIA CRUCIS 291 


“Go, Sir Gilbert!” she said. “Go out and fight, 
and die if need be, that others may live to win 
‘battles for the Cross of Christ.” 

He was gone, and Anne of Auch stood beside her. 

“Lady Anne,” said the Queen, “I thank you. I 
would be alone.” 

She turned and went into the little oratory, and 
knelt down before the altar, looking at the place 
where the shield had stood. 


CHAPTER XIX 


So Gilbert Warde was made a knight, and to this 
day the Wards bear the cross flory in their shield, 
which was given to their forefathers by Eleanor of 
Aquitaine before she was English Queen. And so, 
also, Sir Gilbert promised to ride a day’s march 
before the rest, with a handful of men whom he 
chose among his acquaintance; and many envied 
him his honour, but there were more who warmed 
themse] ves by the camp-fire at night most comfortably, 
and were glad that they had not been chosen to live 
hardly, half starving on their half-starved horses, with 
a cloak and a blanket on the ground for a bed, watch- 
ing in turns by night, and waking each morning to 
wonder whether they should live till sunset. 

In truth there was less of danger than of hard- 
ship at first, and more trouble than either; for 
though Gilbert was sent on with the best of the 
Greek guides to choose the way, and had full power 
of life and death over them, so that they feared him 
more than Satan and dared not hide the truth from 
him, yet when he had chosen the line of the march 
and had sent word by a messenger to the army, the 
answer often came back that the King and the 
Emperor were of another mind, because they had 
listened to some lying Greek ; and since the Emperor 
and the King and Queen had agreed that any one 

292 


VIA CRUCIS 293 


of them must always yield to the opinion of the 
other two, Eleanor’s advice, which was Gilbert’s 
and founded on real knowledge, was often over- 
ridden by the others, and she was forced to give 
way or make an open breach. Then Gilbert ground 
his teeth silently and did the best he could, retrac- 
ing his steps over many miles, exploring a new road, 
and choking down the humiliation bravely, because 
he had given his word. 

But little by little that humiliation turned to 
honour, even among the men who were with him; 
for most of them were taken from the Queen’s army, 
and besides, they saw every day that Gilbert was 
right, so that they trusted him and would have 
followed him through storm and fire. Also in the 
Queen’s army it began to be known, and it spread 
to the other French, and to the Germans, and to the 
Poles and the Bohemians, that when the troops fol- 
lowed the march chosen by Gilbert, all went well, 
and they found water and forage for their horses, 
and food and a good camping-ground; but often, 
when the King and the Emperor had their way, 
there was hunger and cold and lack of water. 

The men began to say to each other, when they 
knew, “This is Sir Gilbert’s road, and to-day is a 
feast-day ;”’ and then, “ This is the King’s road, and 
to-day is Friday.” And on Gilbert’s days they sang 
as they marched, and trudged along cheerfully, and 
his name ran like a sound of gladness along the 
endless lines. He grew, therefore, to be beloved by 
many who had never seen him in the great host, and 
at last even by the most of the soldiers. 


294 VIA CRUCIS 


So they came to Ephesus at last, very weary, and 
with some sick persons among them. Conrad the 
Emperor was in ill case, though he was of the 
strongest, and at Ephesus messengers met him who 
had come by sea from the Emperor of the Greeks, 
begging that he and all his men would sail back to 
Constantinople and spend the rest of the winter 
there, and afterwards go by sea again to Syria. 
And they did so, for the brave Germans were much 
broken and worn because of their marches and 
defeats before they had gone back to Nica, and the 
armies of the King and Queen went on without them, 
to a great meadow by the Meander, where they 
encamped to keep the Christmas feast with great 
thanksgiving for their preservation thus far. 

On Christmas eve Gilbert came into camp with his 
companions, and when they were seen, a great cry 
arose throughout the army, and men left their fires 
and their mending of arms and clothes, and ran out 
to meet him, a gaunt man in rusty armour, on a gaunt 
horse, followed by others in no better plight. His 
mantle was all stained with rain and mud, and was 
rent in many places, and his mail was brown, save 
where it had been chafed bright by his moving; his 
great Norman horse was rough with his winter coat 
and seemed all joints and bones, and Dunstan and 
Alric rode in rags with the men-at-arms. His face 
was haggard with weariness and lack of food, but 
stern and high, and the first who saw him ceased, 
shouting and looked up at him with awe; but then 
he smiled so gently and kindly that the cheer broke 
out again and rang across the camp, far and wide. 


VIA CRUCIS 295 


Presently those who cheered began to follow the 
little train of horsemen, first by twos and tens and 
twenties, till thousands were drawn-into the stream 
and pressed round him, so that he was obliged 
to move slowly. For many weeks they had heard 
his name, knowing that it meant safety for them, 
and wonderful tales had been told over the camp- 
fires of his endurance and courage. So his coming 
back was his first triumph, and the day was memo- 
rable in his hfe. While the army rested there was 
no work for him, and he had returned in order 
to rest himself; but he had nothing of immediate 
importance to report to.the leaders, and he bade 
his men find out his baggage among the heaps 
of packs that had been unloaded from the general 
train of mules, and to pitch his tent near those of 
his old comrades on the march. 

While Dunstan and Alric were obeying his orders, 
he sat on his saddle on the ground, with his weary 
horse standing beside him, his nose plunged into a 
canvas bag half full of oats. Gilbert looked on 
in a sort of mournfully indifferent silence. Every- 
thing he saw was familiar, and yet it all seemed very 
far away and divided from him by weeks of danger 
and hard riding. The vast crowd that had followed 
him had begun to disperse as soon as it was known 
that he was not going before the King, and only 
three or four hundred of the more curious stood and 
moved in groups around the open space where the 
tent was being pitched. Many of his acquaintance 
came and spoke to him, and he rose and shook their 
hands and spoke a few words to each; but none of 


296 VIA CRUCIS 


the greater nobles who had sought him out after he 
had saved the Queen took any pains to find him 
now, though they and their followers owed him 
much. ‘The praise of the multitude and their ring- 
ing cheers had been pleasant enough to hear, but he 
had expected something else, and a cold disappoint- 
ment took possession of his heart as he sat in his 
tent some hours later, considering, with Dunstan, 
the miserable condition and poor appearance of his 
arms and the impossibility of procuring anything 
better. He was as lonely and unnoticed as if he 
had not been devoting every energy he possessed 
to the safe guidance of a great army during the 
past two months. 

“There is nothing to complain of, sir,” said 
Dunstan, in answer to a disconsolate ejaculation of 
Gilbert’s. ‘Your body is whole, you have received 
back your belongings with nothing stolen, which is 
more than I expected of the Greek muleteers, you 
have a new tunic and hose to wear, and bean soup for 
supper. The world is not so bad as it looks.” 

“On the other hand,” answered Gilbert, with a 
sour smile, “my bones ache, my armour is rusty, 
and my purse is empty. Make what good cheer 
you can of that.” 

He rose, and leaving Dunstan to set to work 
upon the injured coat of mail, he took his cap 
and strolled out alone to breathe the afternoon air. 
It was Christmas-time, and the day had been 
bright and clear; but he wore no mantle, for the 
overwhelmingly good reason that he possessed only 
one, which was in rags; and, indeed, he had been 


VIA CRUCIS 297 


so much exposed to bad weather of late that he was 
hardened to every sort of discomfort —a little more 
or less was not worth counting. 

Dunstan was quite right of course, and Gilbert 
had no reasonable cause for complaint. The Queen 
would doubtless send for him on the morrow, and 
had he chosen to present himself before her at once 
he would have been received with honour. But 
he was in an ill humour with himself and the 
worlc, and being still very young, it seemed quite 
natural to yieid to it rather than to reason him- 
self into a better temper. He got out of the camp 
as soon as he could, and walked by the green 
banks of the still Meander. It was winter, but 
the grass was as fresh as it might have been in 
spring, and a salt breeze floated up from the not 
distant sea. He knew the country, for he himself 
had chosen the spot as a camping-place for the army, 
and had advanced still farther when messengers had 
brought him word to come back. To northward 
rolled away the gentle hills beyond Ephesus, while 
to the south and east the mountains of the Cadmus 
and Taurus rose rugged and sharp against the pale 
sky — the range through which the army must next 
make its way to Attalia. The time lacked an hour 
of sunset, and the clear air had taken the first tinge 
of evening. Here and there in the plain the ever- 
green ilex trees grew in little clumps, black against 
the sunlight, but dark green, with glistening points 
among their shadows, where the afternoon sun struck 
full upon them. 

Gilbert had hoped to be alone, but there were 


298 VIA CRUCIS 


parties of idlers along the river-bank as far as he 
could see, and among them were many who bore 
evergreen boughs and young cypress shoots of 
three and four years’ growth, which they were carry- 
ing back to the camp for the Christmas festival. For 
there were many Normans in the army, and Franks 
from Lorraine, and Northern men from Poland and 
Bohemia, and all the men of the North would have 
their Yule trees before their tents, as their heathen 
forefathers had done before them in the days of the 
old faith. 

There were ladies of Eleanor’s troop also, riding 
for pleasure, in rich gowns and flowing mantles, 
and knights with them, all unarmed save for a 
sword or dagger; and there were many dark-eyed 
Greeks, too, both men and women, who had come 
out from Ephesus in holiday clothes to see the 
great camp. It was all calm, and bright, and good 
to see, but out of harmony with Gilbert’s gloomy 
thoughts. At the bend of the stream the ground rose 
a little, somewhat away from the bank, and the 
rocks stuck up rough and jagged out of the green 
grass, a sort of little wilderness in the midst of the 
fertile plain. Almost instinctively, Gilbert turned 
aside and climbed in and out among the stones until 
he reached the highest ledge, on which he seated 
himself in profound satisfaction at having got 
away from his fellow-creatures. The place where 
he had perched was about sixty feet above the 
river-bank, and though he could not distinctly 
hear the conversation of the passing groups he 
could see the expression of every face clearly, and 


VIA CRUCIS 299 


he found himself wondering how often the look 
of each matched the words and the unspoken 
thoughts. ; 

The sun sank lower, and he had no idea how long 
he had sat still, when he became conscious that he 
was intently watching a party of riders who were 
coming toward him. ‘They were stili half a mile 
away, but he saw a white horse in the front rank, 
and even at that distance something in the easy 
pace of the creature made him feel sure that it was 
the Queen’s Arab mare. They came on at a canter, 
and in two or three minutes he could make out the 
figures of those best known to him — Eleanor her- 
self, Anne of Auch, Castignac, and the other two 
attendant knights who were always in the Queen’s 
train, and a score of others riding behind by twos 
and threes. Gilbert sat motionless and watched 
them, nor did it occur to him that he himself, sit- 
ting on the highest boulder and dressed in a tunic 
of dark red, was a striking object in the glow of the 
setting sun. But before she was near enough to 
recognize him, Eleanor had seen him, and her curi- 
osity was roused; afew minutes more, and she knew 
his face. ‘Then their eyes met. 

She drew rein and walked her horse, still looking 
up, and wondering why he gazed at her so fixedly, 
without so much as lifting his cap from his head; 
and then, to her infinite surprise, she saw him 
spring to his feet and disappear from view among 
the rocks. She was so much astonished that she 
stopped her horse altogether and sat several seconds 
staring at the ledge on which he had sat, while all 


300 VIA CRUCIS 


her attendants looked in the same direction, expect 
ing Gilbert to appear again; for several of them had 
recognized him, and supposed that he would hasten 
down to salute the Queen. 

But when he did not come, she moved on, and 
though her face did not change, she did not speak 
again till the camp was reached, nor did any of her 
party dare to break the silence. 

Had she looked back, she might have caught sight 
of Gilbert’s figure walking steadily with bent head 
across the plain, away from the river and from the 
camp, out to the broad solitude beyond. He had 
acted under an impulse, foolishly, almost uncon- 
sciously, being guided by something he did not 
attempt to understand. 

Two months had passed, and more, since he had 
seen her, and in his life of excitement and anxiety 
her face had disappeared from his dreams. While 
he had been away from her, she had not existed for 
him, save as the only leader of the three to whom 
he looked for approbation and support; the woman 
had been lost in the person of the sovereign, and 
had ceased to torment him by the perpetual opposi- 
tion of that which all men coveted to that which he 
truly loved. But now, at the very first sight of her 
face, it seemed as if the Queen were gone again, 
leaving only the woman to his sight, and at the in- 
stant in which he realized it he had turned and fled, 
hardly knowing what he did. . 

He walked steadily on, more than two miles, and 
all at once he cast no shadow, for the sun had gone 
down, and the pale east before him turned to a cool 


VIA CRUCIS 301 


purple in the reflection. The air was very ehilly, 
for the night wind came down suddenly from the 
mountains as the sea breeze died away, and the soli- 
tary man felt cold; for he had no cloak, and exposure 
and fighting had used. his blood, while within him 
there was nothing to cheer his heart. 

It had seemed to him for two years that he was 
always just about to do the high deed, to make the 
great decision of life, to find out his destiny, and he 
had done bravely and well all that he had found in 
his way. ‘The chance came, he seized it, he did his 
best, and the cheers of the soldiers had told him 
afew hours ago that he was no longer the obscure 
English wanderer who had met Geoffrey Plantagenet 
on the road to Paris. Thousands repeated his name 
in honour and looked to him for their safety on the 
march, cursing those who led them astray against his 
warning. In his place on that day, most men would 
have gone to the Queen, expecting a great reward, 
if not claiming it outright. But he was wandering 
alone at nightfall in the great plain, discontented 
with all things, and most of all with himself. 
Everything he had done rose up against him and 
accused him, instead of praising him and flattering 
his vanity; every good deed had a base motive in 
his eyes, or was poisoned by the thought that it had 
not been done for itself, but for an uncertain some- 
thing which came over him when the Queen spoke 
to him or touched his hand. It is not only inactive 
men who grow morbid and fault-finding with them- 
selves; for the wide breach between the ideal good 
and the poor accomplishment holds as much that 


302 VIA CRUCIS 


can disappoint the heart as the mean little ditch 
between thought and deed, wherein so many weak 
good men lie stuck in the mud of self-examination. 
He who stands at the edge of the lhmit, with a 
lifetime of good struggles behind him, may be as 
sad and hopeless as he who sits down and weeps 
before the mountain of untried beginnings. The joy 
of the earthly future is for the very great and the 
very little. For as charity leads mankind by faith 
to the hope of the life to come, so, on the mind’s 
side, by faith in its own strength, the work of genius 
in the past is its own surety for like work to 
come. | 

Gilbert Warde was not of that great mould, but 
more human and less sure of himself; and suddenly, 
as the sun went down, a strong desire of death came 
upon him, and he wished that he were dead and 
buried under the grass whereon he stood, for very 
discontent with himself. It would be so simple, 
and none would mourn him much, except his men, 
perhaps, and they would part his few possessions 
and serve another. He was a burden to the earth, 
since he could do nothing well; he was a coward, 
because he was afraid of a woman’s eyes and had 
fled from their gaze like a boy; he was a sinner 
deserving eternal fire since a touch of a fair woman’s 
hand could make him unfaithful for an instant to 
the one woman he loved best. He had meant to 
tread the way of the Cross in true faith, with un- 
swerving feet, and his heart was the toy of women; he 
had sworn the promises of knighthood, and he was 
already breaking them in his thoughts; he was his 


® 


( 
Mu 
, 


VIA CRUCIS 808 


evil mother’s son, and he had not the strength to be 
unlike her. 

It was folly and madness, and Castignac, the 
Gascon knight, would have laughed at him, or else 
would have believed that he was demented. But to 
the Englishman it was real, for he was under that 
strange melancholy which only Northmen know, and 
which is the most real suffering in all the world. 
It is a dim sadness that gathers like a cloud about 
strong men’s souls, and they fear it, and sometimes 
kill themselves to escape from it into the outer dark- 
ness beyond; but sometimes it drives them to bad 
deeds and the shedding of innocent blood, and now 
and then the better sort of such men turn from the 
world and hide themselves in the abodes of sorrow 
and pain and prayer. ‘The signs of it are that when 
it has no cause it seizes upon trifles to make 
them its reasons, and more often it torments young 
men than the old; and no woman nor southern 
person has ever known it, nor can even understand 
it. But it follows the northern blood from genera- 
tion to generation, like retribution for an evil without 
a name done long ago by the northern race. 

It was dark night when Gilbert found his way 
back to his tent, more by the instinct of one used to 
living in camps among soldiers than by any precise 
recollection of the way, and he sat down to warm 
himself before the brazier of red coals which Alric 
shovelled out of the camp-fire that burned outside. 
His men gave him a pottage of beans, with bread 
and wine, as it was Christmas Eve and a fast- 
day, and there was nothing else, for all the fish 


804 VIA CRUCIS 


brought up from the sea had been bought early in 
the day for the great nobles, long before Gilbert 
had come into the lines. But he neither knew nor 
cared, and he ate mechanically what they gave him, 
being in a black humour. ‘Then he sat a long time 
by the light of the earthenware lamp which Dunstan 
occasionally tended with an iron pin, lest the char- 
ring wick should slip into the half-melted fat and 
go out altogether. When he was not watching the 
wick, the man’s eyes fixed themselves upon his 
master’s grave face. 

“Sir,” he said at last, “you are sad. This is the 
Holy Eve, and all the army will watch till midnight, 
when the first masses begin. If it please you, let us 
walk through the camp and see what we may. The 
tents of the great lords are all lighted up by this 
time and the soldiers are singing the Christmas 
hymns.” 

Gilbert shook his head indifferently, but said 
nothing. 

“Sir,” insisted the man, “I pray you, let us go, 
for you shall be cheered, and there are good sights. 
Before midnight the King and Queen and all the 
court go in procession to the great chapel tent, 
and it is meet that you should be there with 
them.” 

Dunstan brought a garment and gently urged him 
to rise. Gilbert stood up, not looking. 

“Why should I go?” he asked. “I am better 
alone, for I am in a sad humour. And, besides, it 
is very cold.” 

“Your cloak shall keep you warm, sir.” 


VIA CRUCIS 305 


“T cannot walk oe the court people in rags,” 
answered Gilbert; fats I have nothing that is whole 
but this one thin tunic.’ 

But even as he spoke, Dunstan held up the surcoat 
for him to put on over his head, the skirts caught 
up in his hands, which also held the collar open. 

“What is this?” asked Gilbert, in surprise. 

“Tt is a knight’s surcoat, sir,” answered the man. 
“Tt is of very good aie and is wadded with down. 
I pray you, uy it on.’ 

“This is a gift,” said Gilbert, suspiciously, and 
drawing back. ‘“ Who sends me such presents?” 

“The King of France, sir.” 

“You mean the Queen.” He frowned and would 
not touch the coat. 

“The things were brought by the King’s men, 
and one of the King’s knights came also with them, 
and delivered a very courteous message, and a purse 
of Greek bezants, very heavy.” 

Gilbert began to walk up and down, in hesitation. 
He was very poor, but if the gifts were from the 
Queen, he was resolved not to keep them. 

“Sir,” said Dunstan, “the knight said most ex- 
pressly that the King sent you these poor presents 
as a token that he desires to see you to-morrow and 
to thank you for all you have done. I thought to 
please you by bringing them out suddenly.” 

Then Gilbert smiled kindly, for the man loved 
him, and he put his head and arms into the knightly 
garment with its wide sleeves, and Dunstan laced it 
up the back, so that it fitted closely to the body, 
while the skirt hung down below the knees. It 


x 


806 VIA CRUCIS 


was of a rich dark silk, woven in the East, and 
much like the velvet of later days. Then Dun- 
stan girded his master with a new sword-belt made 
of heavy silver plates, finely chased and sewn on 
leather, and he thrust the great old sword with its 
sheath through the flattened ring that hung to the 
belt by short silver chains. Lastly he put upon 
Gilbert’s shoulders a mantle of very dark red cloth, 
lined with fine fur and clasped at the neck with 
silver; for it was not seemly to wear a surcoat with- 
out a cloak. 

“Tt is very noble,” said Dunstan, moving back a 
step or two to see the effect. 

Indeed, the young English knight looked well in 
the dress of his station, which he wore for the first 
time; for he was very tall and broad of shoulder, and 
a lean man, well-bred; his face was clear and pale, 
and his fair hair fell thick and long behind his cap. 

“But you, Dunstan, you cannot be seen —” 

Gilbert stopped, for he noticed suddenly that both 
his men were clad in new clothes of good cloth and 
leather. 

“The servants are honoured with their lord,” said 
Dunstan. “The King sent gifts for us, too.” 

_ “That was a man’s thought, not a woman’s,” said 
Gilbert, almost to himself. 

He went out, and Dunstan walked by his left, but 
half a step behind his stride, as was proper. 

The camp was lit up with fires and torches as far as 
one could see, and all men were out of doors, either 
walking up and down, arm in arm, or sitting before 
their tents on folding-stools, or on their saddles, 


VIA CRUCIS 307 


or on packs of baggage. The hundreds and thou- 
sands of little Christmas trees, stuck into the earth 
‘amid circles of torches before the newly whitened 
tents, made a great garden of boughs and evergreens, 
and the yellow glare shone everywhere through lac- 
ing branches, and fell on rich colours and gleaming 
arms, well polished for the holiday, and lost itself 
suddenly in the cold starlight overhead. The air 
smelt of evergreen and the aromatic smoke of burn- 
ing resin. 

The night rang with song also, and in some places 
as many as a hundred had gathered in company to 
sing the long Christmas hymns they had learned as 
little children far away at home — endless canticles 
with endless repetitions, telling the story of the 
Christ-Child’s birth at Bethlehem, of the adoration 
of the shepherds, and of the coming of the Eastern 
kings. 

In one part of the camp the rough Burgundians 
were drinking the strong Asian wine in deep 
draughts, roaring their great choruses between, with 
more energy than unction. But for the most part 
the northern men were sober and in earnest, praying 
as they sang and looking upward as if the Star of the 
East were presently to shed its soft light in the 
sky; and they tended the torches and lights around 
the trees devoutly, not guessing that their fathers 
had done the same long ago, in bleak Denmark and 
snowy Norway, in worship of Odin and in honour of 
Yegedrasil, the tree of life. 

The Gascons and all the men of the South, on 
their side, had made little altars between two trees, 


| 308 VIA CRUCIS 


decked with white cloths and adorned with tinsel 
ornaments and little crosses and small carved images 
carefully brought, like household gods, from the far 
home, and treasured only next to their arms. The 
thin, dark faces of the men were fervent with 
southern faith, and their wild black eyes were 
deep and still. 

There were also Alsatians and Lorrainers in lines 
by themselves, quiet, fair-haired men. They had 
little German dolls of wood, and toys brightly 
painted, and by their trees they set out the scene 
of Bethlehem, with the manger and the Christ- 
Child, and the oxen crouching down, and the Blessed 
Mary and Saint Joseph, and also the shepherds and 
the wise kings ; and the men sat down before these 
things with happy faces and sang their songs. So it 
was through the whole camp, the soldiers doing every- 
where according to their customs. 

As for the nobles and knights, Gilbert saw some 
of them walking about like himself, and some were 
sitting before their tents. Here and there, as he 
passed, when a tent was open, he saw knights 
kneeling in prayer, and could hear them reciting the 
litanies. But it was not always so, for some were 
spending the night in feasting, their tents being 
closed, though one could hear plainly the revelry. 
There was more than one great tent in the French 
lines, of which the curtain was raised a little, and 
there Gilbert saw men and women drinking together, 
under bright lights, and he saw that the women were 
Greeks and that their cheeks were painted and their 
eyelids blackened ; and he turned away from the 


VIA CRUCIS 309 


sight, in disgust that such things should be done 
on the Holy Eve of Christmas. 

_ Further on, some very poor soldiers, in sheepskin 
doublets and leathern hose, were kneeling together 
before a sort of rough screen, on which were hung 
images painted in the manner of Greek eikons. 
These men had long and silky beards, and their 
smooth brown hair hung out over their shoulders in 
well-combed waves, and some of them had beautiful 
faces. One, who was a priest of their own, stood 
upright and recited prayers in a low chant, and from 
time to time, at the refrain, the soldiers all bowed 
themselves till their foreheads touched the ground. 

“The Lord Jesus Christ be praised,” sang the 
priest. 

“'To all ages. Amen,” responded the soldiers. 

Though they sang in the Bohemian language, and 
Gilbert could not understand, he saw that they 
believed and were of an earnest mind. 

So he walked about for more than an hour, look- 
ing and listening, and his own sad humour was 
lightened a little as he forgot to think of himself 
only. For it seemed a great thing to have been 
chosen to lead so many through a wilderness full 
of danger, and to know that more than a hundred 
thousand lives had been in his keeping, as it were, 
for two months, and were to be in his hand again, 
till he should lead them safely into Syria, or perish 
himself and leave his task to another. It was 
a task worth accomplishing and a trust worth his 
life. 

Then, at midnight, he was walking in a great 


310 VIA CRUCIS 


procession after the King and Queen. Modestly he 
joined the ranks, and his man walked beside him 
carrying a torch, so that the light fell full upon 
his face. Some one knew him, and spoke to his 
neighbour. 

“That is Sir Gilbert Warde, who is our guide,” 
he said. 

In an instant word ran along the line that he 
was there; and in a few minutes a messenger came 
breathless, asking for him, and then the herald of 
France, Montjoye Saint Denis, came after, bidding 
him to a foremost place, in the name of the King and 
Queen. So he followed the herald, whose runner 
walked before him, as had been bidden by Eleanor 
herself. 

“Make way for the Guide of Aquitaine!” cried 
the squire, in a loud voice. 

Knights and men-at-arms stood aside to let him 
pass, and the tall Englishman went between them, 
courteously bending his head to thank those who 
moved out of his way, and deprecating the high 
honour that was done him. He heard his name 
repeated, both by men whose faces he could see in 
the light around him, when the torches blazed and 
flamed, and also from the darkness beyond. 

“Well done, Sir Gilbert!” cried some. “God 
bless the Guide of Aquitaine!” cried many others. 
And all the voices praised him, so that his heart 
warmed. 

Following the herald, he came to his place in the 
procession, in the front rank of the great vassals of 
the two kingdoms, and just after the sovereign lords; 


VIA CRUCIS 811 


and as he was somewhat taller than other men, he 
could look over their heads, and he saw the King and 
Queen in their furs, walking together, and before 
them the bishops and priests. At the stir madz by 
his coming Eleanor turned and looked back, and her 
eyes met Gilbert’s through the smoky glare, gazing 
at him sadly, as if she would have made him under- 
stand something she could not say. 

But he would not have spoken if he could, for 
his thoughts were on other things. The procession 
went on toward the royal altar, set up under an open 
tent in a wide space, so that the multitude could 
kneel on the grass and both see and hear the cele- 
bration. So they all knelt down, the great barons 
and chief vassals having small hassocks for their 
knees, while the King and Queen and the sovereign 
lords of Savoy and Alsatia and Lorraine, and of 
Bohemia and of Poland, had rich praying-stools set 
out for them in a row, next to the King and Queen. 

The torches were stuck into the ground to burn 
down as they might, and the great wax candles shone 
quietly on the white altar, for the night was now very 
stilland clear. ‘There all the great nobles and many 
thousands of other men heard the Christmas mass, 
just after midnight, knowing that many of them 
should never hear it again on earth. There they 
all sang together, in a mighty melody of older times, 
the ‘Glory to God in the highest,’ which was first 
sung on the Holy Eve; and there, when the Bishop 
of Metz was about to lift up the consecrated bread, 
the royal trumpets rang out a great call to the mul- 
titude, so that all men might bow themselves to- 


812 VIA CRUCIS 


gether. Then the silence was very deep, while the 
Lord passed by; nor ever again in his life did Sir 
Gilbert Warde know such a stillness as that was, 
save once, and it seemed to him that in the Way 
of the Cross he had reached a place of refreshment 
and rest. 


CHAPTER XX 


GILBER1 rose from his knees with the rest, and then 
he saw that the King and Queen placed themselves 
side by side and standing, and the nobles began to 
go up to them according to their rank, to kiss their 
hands. As Gilbert stood still, not knowing what 
to do, he watched the procession of the barons from 
a distance. Suddenly he felt that his eyes were wide 
open, and that he was gazing at a face which he 
knew, hardly believing that he saw it in the flesh; 
and his back stiffened, and his teeth ground on one 
another. 

Ten paces from him, waiting and looking on, like 
himself, stood a graceful man of middle height, of 
a clear olive complexion, with a well-clipped beard 
of somewhat pointed cut, grey at the sides, as was 
also the smooth, dark hair. Years had passed, and 
the last time he had seen that face had been in the 
changing light of the greenwood, where the sunshine 
played among the leaves; and as he had seen it 
last, he had felt steel in his side and had fallen 
asleep, and after that his life had changed. For 
Arnold de Curboil was before him, looking at him, 
but not recognizing him. Still Gilbert stood rooted 
to the spot, trying not to believe his senses, for 
he could not understand how his stepfather could 
suddenly be among the Crusaders; but the divine 

313 


314 VIA CRUCIS 


peace that had descended upon him that night was 
shivered as a mirror by a stone, and his heart grew 
cold and hard. 

The man also was changed since Gilbert had seen 
him. The face was handsome still, but it was thin 
and sharp, and the eyes were haggard and weary, 
as if they had seen a great evil long and had 
sickened of it at last, and were haunted by it. Gil- 
bert looked at him who had murdered his father 
and had brought shame to his mother, and who had 
robbed him of his fair birthright, and he saw that 
something of the score had been paid. Gradually, 
too, as Sir Arnold gazed, a look of something like 
despair settled in his face, a sort of horror that was 
not fear, —for he was no coward, — but was rather 
a dread of himself. He made a step forward, and 
Gilbert waited, and heard how Dunstan, who stood 
behind him, loosened his dagger in its brass sheath. 

At that moment came the King’s herald again as 
before, bidding him go up to the presence of the 
King and Queen. 

“Room for the Guide of Aquitaine!” 

The cry rang loud and clear, and Gilbert saw Sir 
Arnold start in surprise at the high-sounding title. 
Then he followed the herald; but in his heart 
there was already a triumph tliat the man who had 
left him for dead in the English woods should find 
him again thus preferred before other men. 

The Queen’s face grew paler as he came toward 
her and knelt down on one knee, and through her 
embroidered glove of state his own hand, that was 
cold, felt that hers was colder. But it did not 


VIA CRUCIS 815 


tremble, and her voice was steady and clear, so that 
all could hear it. 

“Sir Gilbert Warde,” she said, “ you have oc 
well. Guienne thanks you, and France also — 
She paused and looked toward the King, who was 
watching her closely. 

Louis bent his great pale face solemnly toward 
the Englishman. 

“We thank you, Sir Gilbert,” he said, with cold 
condescension. 

“A hundred thousand men thank you,” added 
Eleanor, in a ringing voice that was to make up 
for her husband’s ungrateful indifference. 

There was a moment’s silence, and then the voice 
of Gaston de Castignac, high and full, sent up a 
cheer that was heard far out in the clear night. 

‘God bless the Guide of Aquitaine!” 

The cheer was taken up in the deep shout of 
strong men in earnest ; for it was known how Gilbert 
cared not for himself, nor for rewards, but only for 
honour ; and the thirty men who had been with him 
had told far and wide how often he had watched 
that they might sleep, and how he would always give 
the best to others, and how gently and courteously 
he treated those he commanded. 

But in the loud cheering, Eleanor took his hand 
in both hers and bent down to speak to him, unheard 
by the rest; and her voice was low and trembled 
a little. 

“God bless you!” she said fervently. “God 
bless you and keep you, for as I am a living cet 
you are dearer to me than the whole world.” 


316 VIA CRUCIS 


Gilbert understood how she loved him, as he had 
not understood before. And yet her touch had no 
evil power to move him now, and the shadow of his 
mother no longer haunted him in her eyes as he 
looked up. There, beside the Christmas altar, in the 
Holy Night, she was trying to complete the sacrifice 
of herself and her love. Gilbert answered her 
earnestly. 

“Madam,” he said, “I shall try to do your will 
with all my heart, even to death.” 

Thereafter he kept his word. But now he rose to 
his feet, and after bending his knee again, he looked 
into the Queen’s sad eyes, and passed on to make 
way for the others, while the cheers that were for 
him still rang in the air. 

Then he began to walk to his tent. Dunstan had 
lighted a fresh torch and was waiting for him. But 
the great barons, who had gone up to the King and 
Queen before him, pressed round him and shook his 
hand, one after another, and bade him to their feast- 
ing on the morrow ; nor was there jealousy of him, 
as there had been when he had saved the Queen’s 
life at Nica, for now that they saw him they felt 
that he was no courtier, and desired only the safety 
of the army, with his own honour. 

As they thronged about him, there came Sir Arnold 


, , de Curboil, pressing his way among them, and when 


he was before Gilbert he also held out his hand. 
“Gilbert Warde,” he asked, “do you not know me?” 
“] know you, sir,” answered the young knight, in 
a clear voice that all could hear, “ but I will not take 
your hand.” 


VIA CRUCIS exert 


There was silence, and the great nobles looked on, 
not understanding, while Dunstan held his torch 
so that the light fell full upon Sir Arnold’s pale 
features. 

“ Then take my glove! ” 

He plucked off his loose leathern gauntlet and 
tossed it lightly at Gilbert’s face. But Dunstan’s 
quick left hand caught it in the air, while the torch 
scarcely wavered in his right. 

Gilbert was paler than his enemy, but he would 
not let his hand go to his sword, and he folded his 
arms under his mantle, lest they should move against 
his will. 

“Sir,” he said, “ I will not fight you again at this 
time, though you killed my father treacherously. 
Though you have stolen my birthright, I will not 
fight you now, for I have taken the Cross, and I will 
keep the vow of the Cross, come what may.” 

“Coward !” cried Sir Arnold, contemptuously, and 
he would have turned on his heel. 

But Gilbert stepped forward and caught him by 
his arms and held him quietly, without hurting him, 
but so that he could not easily move and must hear. 

“You have called me a coward, Sir Arnold de 
Curboil. How should I fear you, since I can wring 
you to death in my hands if I will? But I will let 
you go, and these good lords here shail judge 
whether I am a coward or not because I will not 
fight you until I have fulfilled my vows.” 

‘“ Well said,” cried the old Count of Bourbon. 

“Well said, well done,” sried many others. 

Moreover, the Count of Savoy, of whose race 


318 VIA CRUCIS 


none was ever born that knew fear, even to this 
day, spoke to his younger brother of Montferrat. 

“JT have not seen a braver man than this English 
knight, nor a better man of his hands, nor one more 
gentle, and he has the face of a leader.” 

Then Gilbert loosed his hold and Sir Arnold 
looked angrily to the right and left, and passed out 
of the crowd, all men making way for him as if they 
would not touch him. Some of them turned to 
Gilbert again, and asked him questions about the 
strange knight. 

“My lords,” he answered, “he is Sir Arnold de 
Curboil, my stepfather; for when he had killed my 
father, he married my mother and stole my lands. 
I fought him when I was but a boy, and he left me 
for dead in the forest; and now I think that he is 
come from England to seek occasion against me; but 
if I live I shall get back my inheritance. And now, 
if I seem to you to have dealt justly by him, I crave 
my leave of you, and thank your lordships for your 
good will and courtesy.” 

So they bade him good-night, and he went away, 
leaving many who felt that he had done well, but 
that, in his place, they could not have done as much. 
They did not know how dear it cost him, but dimly 
they guessed that he was braver than they, though 
they were of the bravest. 

He was very tired, and had not slept in a good bed 
under his own tent for two months; yet he was sleep- 
less, and awoke after two hours, and could not sleep 
again till within an hour of the winter dawn; for he 
feared some evil for Beatrix if her father should claim 


VIA CRUCIS ; ‘819 


her of the Queen and take her back from Ephesus 
by sea, as he must have come. 

At daylight, warming themselves at a fire, Dun- 
stan told Alric all that happened in the night. The 
Saxon’s stolid face did not change, but he was 
thoughtful and silent for some time, remembering 
how the Lady Goda had once had him beaten, long 
ago, because he had not held Sir Arnold’s horse in 
the right way when the knight was mounting. 

Presently Beatrix’s Norman tirewoman came to 
the two men, wrapped in a brown cloak with a hood 
that covered half her face. She told them that her 
lady knew of Sir Arnold’s coming, and begged of Sir 
Gilbert that for her sake he would walk by the river 
at noon, when every one would be at dinner in the 
camp, and she would try and meet him there. 


CHAPTER XxI 


GILBERT waited long, for he went down early to the 
river, and he sat on a big stone sunning himself, for 
the air was keen, and there was a north wind. At 
last he saw two veiled women coming along the bank. 
The shorter one was a little lame and leaned upon 
the other’s arm, and the wind blew their cloaks be- 
fore them as they came. When he saw that Beatrix 
limped, knowing that she had not quite recovered 
from her fall, and remembering that she might 
have been killed, his heart sank with a sickening 
faintness. 

He took her by the hand very gently, for she looked 
so slight and ill that he almost feared to touch her, 
and yet he did not wish to let her fingers go, nor she 
to take them away. The tirewoman went down to 
the river-bank, at some distance, and they sat upon 
the big stone, hand in hand like two children, and 
looked at each other. Suddenly the girl’s face 
lightened, as if she had just found out that she 
was glad; her eyes laughed, and her voice was as 
happy as a bird’s at sunrise. 

Gilbert had not seen her for a long time. Tosuch ~ 
a man, all women, and even one chosen woman, might 
easily become an ideal, too far from the material to 
have a real hold upon his manhood, and so high above 
earth as to have no spiritual realization. Even in that 

320 


VIA CRUCIS _ 821 


age many a knight made a divinity of his lady and 
a. religion of his devotion to her, so that the very 
meaning of love was forgotten in the ascetic imvulse 
to seek the soul’s salvation in all things, even in the 
contempt of all earthly longings; and those men de- 
manded as much in return, expecting it even after 
their own death. ‘There were also women, like Anne 
of Auch, who gave such devotion freely. Neverthe- 
less, it was not altogether in this way between Beatrix 
and Gilbert, and if it might have been, so far as he 
was concerned, she would not have had it so, and her 
words proved it. 

“Tam so proud of you!” shecried. “And I am 
so very glad to see you.” 

“Proud of me?” he asked, smiling sadly. “Iam 
not proud of myself. For all I have done, you might 
be dead at Nicea.”’ 

“ But Iam alive,” she answered happily, “and by 
your doing, though I cannot yet walk quite well.” 

“‘T ought to have let the Queen pass on. I ought 
to have thought only of you.” 

He found a satisfaction in saying aloud at last 
what had been so long in his heart against him- 
self, and in saying it to Beatrix herself. But she 
would not hear it. 

“That would have been very unknightly and dis- 
loyal,” she said. “I would not have had you do it, 
for you would have been blamed by men. And 
then I should never have heard what I heard yester- 
day and last night, the very best words I ever 
heard in all my life—the cry of a great army 
blessing one man for a good work well done.” 


YX 


822 VIA CRUCIS 


“1 have done nothing,” answered Gilbert, stolidhy 
determined to depreciate himself in her eyes. 

But she smiled and laid her gloved hand quickly 
upon his lips. 

“J would not have another laugh at you, as I 
do!” she cried. 

He looked at her, and the mask of grave melan- 
choly which was fast becoming his natural expression 
began to soften, as if it could not last forever. 

“TIT have often thought of you and wondered 
whether you would think well of my deeds,” he said. 

“You see!” she laughed. ‘And now because 
I am proud of you, you pretend that you have done 
nothing! That is poor praise of my good sight and 
judgment.” 

He laughed, too. Since the dawn of time, women 
have retorted thus upon brave men too modest of their 
doings ; and since the first woman found the trick, 
it has never failed to please man. But love needs 
not novelty, for he himself is always young; the 
stars of night are not less fair in our eyes because 
men knew the ‘sweet influence of the Pleiades’ in 
Job’s day, nor is the scent of new-mown hay less 
delicate because all men love it. The old is the 
best, even in love, which is young. 

‘Say what you will,” answered Gilbert, presently, 
“we are together to-day.” 

“ And nothing else matters,” said Beatrix. ‘ Not 
even that it is two months since I have seen you, 
and that I have been ill, or, at least, half crippled, 
by that fall. It is all forgotten.” 

He looked at her, not quite understanding, for as 


VIA CRUCIS Blo 


she spoke her eyebrows were raised a little, with her 
own expression, half sad, half laughing at herself. 

“T wish I could see you more often,” answered 
Gilbert. 

Her little birdlike laugh disconcerted him. 

«¢ Indeed, I am in earnest,”’ he said. 

«And yet when you are in earnest, you do much 
harder things,” answered Beatrix, and at once the 
sadness had the better of the laughter in her face. 
“Oh, Gilbert, I wish we were back in England in 
the old days.” 

shee LON i en 

“Oh, no! Youdonot. You say so to please me, 
but you cannot make it sound true. You are a 
great man now. You are Sir Gilbert Warde, the 
Guide of Aquitaine. Itis you, and you only, who are 
leading the army, and you will have all the honour of 
it. Would you go back to the old times when we 
were boy and girl? Would you, if you could?” 

“TT would if I could.” 

He spoke so gravely that she understood where 
his thoughts were, and that they were not all for 
her. For afew moments she looked down in silence, 
pulling at the fingers of her glove, and once she 
sighed; then, without looking up, she spoke, in her 
sweet, low voice. 

‘‘ Gilbert, what are we to each other? Brother 
and sister?” 

He started, again not understanding, and fancying 
that she was setting up the Church’s canon between 
them, which he now knew to be no unremovable 
impediment. 


324 VIA CRUCIS 


“You are no more my sister than your tire- 
woman there can be,” he answered, more warmly 
than he had spoken yet. 

“TY did not mean that,” she said sadly. 

‘TI do not understand, then.” 

“Tf you do not, how can I tell you what I mean?” 
She glanced at him and then looked away quickly, 
for she was blushing, and was ashamed of her 
boldness. 

“Do you mean that I love you as I might a 
sister?” asked Gilbert, with the grave tactlessness 
of a thoroughly honest man. 

The blush deepened in her cheek, and she nodded 
slowly, still looking away. 

*« Beatrix 177 

“Well?” She would not turn to him. 

“ What have I done that you should say such a 
thing?” 

“That is it!” she answered regretfully. “ You 
have done great things, but they were not for me.”’ 

“ Have I not told you how I have thought of you 
day after day, hoping that you might think well of 
my deeds?” 

“Yes. But you might have done one thing more. 
That would have made all the difference.” 

“What?” He bent anxiously towards her for the 
answer. 

“You might have tried to see me.” 

‘But I was never in the camp. I was always a 
day’s march in the lead of the army.” 

“But not always fighting. There were days, or 
nights, when you could have ridden back. I would 


VIA CRUCIS (yn 


have met you anywhere —I would have ridden hours 
to see you. But you never tried. And at last it is 
I who send for you and beg you to come and talk 
with me ae And 2h do not even seem glad to 
be with me.’ 

“T did not think that I had a nent to leave my 
post and come back, even for you.’ 

* You could not have helped it —if you had cared.” 
She spoke very low. 

Gilbert looked at her long, and the lines deepened 
in his face, for he was hurt. 

“Do you really believe that I do not love you?” 
he asked, but his voice was cold because he tried to 
control it, and succeeded too well. 

‘* You have never told me so,” Beatrix answered. 
“ You have done little to make me think so, since we 
were children together. You have never tried to see. 
me when it would have cost you anything. You are 
not glad to see me now.” 

Her voice could be cold, too; but there was a 
tremor in some of the syllables. He was utterly sur- 
prised and taken unawares, and he slowly repeated 
the substance of what she said. 

“T never told youso? Never made you think so? 
Oh, Beatrix ! ” 

He remembered the sleepless nights he had passed, 
accusing himself of letting even one thought of the 
Queen come between him and the girl who was de- 
nying his love—the restless, melancholy hours of 
self-accusation, the cruel self-torment —how could 
she know? 

She was in earnest, now, though she had begun 


826 VIA CRUCIS 


half playfully; for if the man’s heart had not changed, 
he had gone away from her in his active life, and in 
the habit of hiding all real feeling which comes from 
living long alone or with strangers. It was true that 
outwardly he had hardly seemed glad to see her, and 
all the ring of happiness had died away out of her 
voice before they had exchanged many words. He 
felt her mood, and it grew clear to him that he had 
made some great mistake which it would be very hard 
to set right. And she was thinking how boldly she 
had striven with the Queen for his love, and that now 
it seemed to be no love at all. 

But he, whose impulse was ever to act when there 
was danger, however much he might weary his soul 
with inward examination at other times, grew desper- 
ate, and gave up thinking of a way out of the difficulty. 
What he loved was slipping from him, and though 
he loved it in his own way, it was indeed all he loved, 
and he would not let it go. 

Thoughtless at last, and sudden, he took her into 
his arms, and his face was close to hers, and his eyes 
were in hers, and their lips breathed the same breath, 
She was not frightened, but her lids drooped, and she 
turned quite white. Then he kissed her, not once, 
but many times, and as if he would never let her go, 
on her pale mouth, on her dark eyelids, on her way- 
ing hair. 

“Tf I kill you, you shall know that I love you,” 
he said, and he kissed her again, so that it hurt her, 
but it was good to be hurt. 

After that she lay in his arms, very still, and she 
looked up slowly, and their eyes met; and it was as if 


VIA CRUCIS 827 


the veil had fallen from between them. When he 
kissed her again, his kisses were gentle and altogether 
tender. : 

“JT had almost lost si he said, breathing the 

words to her ear. 

The Norman tirewoman sat motionless by the 
river’s edge, waiting till she should be called. After 
a time they began to talk again, and their voices 
were in tune, like their hearts. Then Gilbert spoke 
of what had happened in the night, but Beatrix 
already knew that her father had come. 

“He has come to take me away,” she said, “and 
we have talked together. Gilbert —a dreadful thing 
has happened; did he tell you?” 

“He told me nothing — excepting that I was a 
coward!” He laughed scornfully. 

“J think he is half mad with sorrow.” She paused 
and laid her hand on Gilbert’s. ‘“ His wife is dead, — 
your mother is dead, — with the child she bore him.” 

Gilbert’s eyes alone changed, but under her palm 
Beatrix felt the sinews of his hand leap and the veins 
swell. 

“Tell me quickly,” he said. 

‘‘She was burned,” continued Beatrix, in a tone of 
awe. ‘She made my father grind his people till they 
turned, and she made him hang the leader who spoke 
for them. Then all the yeomen and the bondmen 
rose, and they burned the castle, and your mother 
died with the child. But my father escaped alive. 
Now I am again his only child, and he wants me 
again.” 

Gilbert’s head fell forward, as if he had received a 


328 VIA CRUCIS 


blow, but he said nothing for a time, for he saw his 
mother’s face; and he saw her not as when they had 
parted, but as he remembered her before that, when 
he had loved her above all things, not knowing what 
she was. In spite of all that had gone between, she 
came back to him as she had been, and the pain and the 
pity were real and great. But then he felt Beatrix’s 
hand pressing his in sympathy, and it brought him 
again to the evil truth. He raised his head. 

“She is better dead,” he said bitterly. “Let us 
not speak of her any more. She was my mother.” 

He stared long at the river, and the sadness of his 
homeless and lonely state in the world began to come 
upon him, as it came often. Then a soft voice broke 
the spell, and the words answered his thoughts. 

‘We are not alone, you and I,” it said, and the 
two small hands crept up shyly and clasped his neck, 
and the loving, pathetic face looked up to his. ‘Do 
not let him take me away!” she begged. 

His hand pressed her head to his breast, and once 
more he kissed her hair. 

‘He shall not take you,” he said. ‘No one shall 
take you from me; no one shall come between you 
and me.” 

Beatrix’s eyes seemed to drink out of his the mean- 
ing of the words he spoke. 

“Promise me that,” she said, knowing that he 
would promise her the world. 

“TY promise it with all my heart.” 

“On your knightly faith?” She smiled as she 
insisted. 

“On my honour and faith.” 


VIA CRUCIS 329 


*“ And on the faith of love, too?” She almost 
laughed, out of sheer happiness. 

“On the very truth of true love,” he answered. 

‘Then I am quite safe,” she said, and she hid her 
face against his surcoat.. “Iam glad I came to you, I 
am glad that I was so bold as to send for you this day, 
for it is the best day of my whole life. And, Gilbert, 
you will not wait till I send for you another time? 
You will try and see me —of your own accord?” 

She was altogether in anxiety again, and there was 
a look of fear and sadness in her eyes. 

“‘ T will try — indeed I will,” he said earnestly. 

‘Whenever you do, you shall succeed,” she 
answered, nestling to him. “I wish I might shut 
my eyes and rest here— now that I know.” 

“ Rest, sweet, rest ! ” 

A moment, and then, from far away, a clarion call 
rang on the still air. With the instinct of the soldier, 
Gilbert started, and listened, holding his breath, but 
still pressing the girl close to him. 

“ What is it?” she asked, half frightened. 

It came again, joyous and clear. 

“It is nothing,” he said. “It is the Christmas 
banquet, and perhaps the King drinks the Queen’s 
health — and she his.” 

“And perhaps, though no one knows it, she—” 
But Beatrix stopped and laughed. “I will not say 
it! Why should I care?” 

She was thinking that if the Queen drank a health 
it might be meant, in her heart, for the Guide of 
Aquitaine, and she nestled closer to him in the 
sunshine. 


CHAPTER XXIk 


A WEEK the army stayed in camp by the pleasant 
waters of the Meander, and daily at noon Gilbert and 
Beatrix met at the same place. She told him that 
she had not seen her father again, and believed that 
he had left the camp. The Queen knew that the 
lovers met, but she would not hinder them, though 
it was cruel pain to think of their happiness. Many 
have spoken and written evil things of Eleanor, for 
she was a haughty woman and overbearing, and she 
feared neither God nor man, nor Satan either; but 
she had a strong and generous heart, and, having 
promised, she kept her word as well as she could. 
She would not send for Gilbert, nor see him alone, 
lest she should fail of resolution when her eyes 
looked on him too closely. Beatrix knew this and 
took heart, and the veil of estrangement was lifted 
between her and Gilbert. 

On the last day but one of the year he went be- 
fore the King, who bade him mount again with his 
men and ride before the army through the passes of 
the Cadmus towards Attalia, seeking out the safest 
way and giving timely warning of the enemy. Also, 
because it was known that the danger must be 
greater now than before, the King gave him leave to 
choose knights and men-at-arms to the number of a 
hundred, to be under him, and made him rich presents 
of fine armour, and caused his shield to be painted 

330 


VIA CRUCIS 831 


afresh by a skilled Greek. While he talked with Gil- 
bert he watched the Queen, who sat apart somewhat 
pale, reading ina Book of Hours, for he was suspicious 
of her; but she never looked at the Englishman until 
he was taking his leave.. Then she beckoned him to 
her, before he went out, and gave him her ungloved 
hand, which he kissed, and she looked into his face a 
moment, very sadly, not knowing whether she should 
see him again. So he went out, to bid Beatrix farewell. 

She met him at the accustomed place by the river, 
and for a while they were together; but they could 
not talk much, being both very sad. She took a 
golden ring from her hand, and would have put it 
upon his finger, but it was too small. 

“I had hoped that you could wear it,” she said, 
disappointed, “for it was my mother’s.” 

Gilbert took it in his hand. It was of very pure 
gold and thin, so he cut it open with the point of 
his dagger and bent it back and clasped it round 
his fourth finger, tightly. 

“‘ I¢ is our troth,” he said. 

It was hard to let him go, for she also knew the 
peril, as the Queen knew it. 

“IT shall pray for you,” she said, clinging to him. 
“God is good — you may come back to me.” 

They sat a long time together, saying nothing. 
When it was time for him to lead his men out, as he 
judged by the sun, he kissed her, lifting her up to 
him. 

“* Good-by,” he said. 

“‘ Not yet |!” she pleaded, between his kisses. “Oh, 
Gilbert, not so very soon!” 


832 VIA CRUCIS 


But she knew that he must go, and he set her 
gently upon her feet, for it was the last moment. 
When he was gone, she sat down upon the stone, 
and the Norman woman came and put one arm 
round her, holding her, for she seemed fainting. 
Still her eyes followed him as he strode along the 
river, till he reached the turning. There he stopped 
and looked back, and kissed the ring she had given 
him, and waved his hand to her; and she pressed 
both her hands to her lips and threw them out to 
him, as if she would have thrown him her heart and 
her soul with it. 

When he was gone, the sky turned black before 
her eyes and time stood still, and she knew what 
death meant. But she did not faint, and she had 
no tears. Only, when she went back after some 
time, she walked unsteadily and her woman helped 
her. 

So Gilbert rode out to seek the way, taking well- 
mounted messengers with him as before, and on the 
first day of the New Year the whole army began the 
march again, crossing the river the first time at a 
ford. The Queen would perforce be in the van, 
with her ladies, so that the speed of their riding 
became the speed of the whole army, whereby the 
whole host was kept together. The first messenger 
who came back told that Sir Gilbert had reached 
the hills, and led the Queen by the way he had fol- 
lowed, saying that so far he had met no enemies. 
But on the morrow, as they drew near to the moun- 
tains and rode up the rising ground, they saw afar 
off a man standing by one who lay stark on the 


VIA CRUCIS 333 


ground, and driving off a vulture and a score of 
ravens with a long staff. The Queen’s heart stood 
still when she saw this sight, and she spurred her 
Arab mare forward before all the army till she 
stopped beside the dead .body and saw that the face 
was not Gilbert’s. The squire who was guarding 
the dead told her how, very early in the morning, 
some fifty Seljuk horsemen had come down from the 
hills and had shot arrows at Gilbert and his men 
from a distance, wheeling quickly and galloping away 
out of sight before the Christians could mourt; and 
this one knight had been killed, and his squire*had 
stayed by him till the army should come up, while 
the rest rode on, and took both the horses with them 
in case they should lose any of their own. 

There they buried the body deep, when the 
Queen’s chaplain had blessed it, and they marched 
on till noon, and encamped. From that time the 
Queen made her ladies ride in the centre of the 
great host, protected on all sides; but she herself, 
with the Lady Anne of Auch, still kept the van, for 
in this way she was nearer to Gilbert. She also 
sent out parties of scouts to the right and left, to 
give warning of the Seljuks; and the King guarded 
the rear, where there was also great danger. 

Meanwhile Gilbert went farther up into the moun- 
tains, searching out the best way to the pass, distrust- 
ing the Greek guides, who nevertheless feared him 
and told him the truth, though it was the secret wish 
of the Greek Emperor that the army should all be 
destroyed, because he desired no increase of the 
western power in Asia. But Gilbert told the guides 


334 VIA CRUCIS 


severally and all together that he would cut off the 
head of the first one who should even seem to be 
false ; and he kept them under his own eye, and his 
long sword was always loose in the sheath. 

He went very cautiously now, setting sentinels 
at night and sleeping little himself, so that he might 
often go alone from post to post and see that all was 
well. But the Seljuks never came in the darkness, 
for as yet there were not many of them, and they 
trusted to their bows by day, when they could see ; 
but they feared to come to close quarters with the 
picked swordsmen of the French army. Since they 
had. first shown themselves, the Christians all rode 
fully armed in mail and hood, knights and men-at- 
arms and young squires alike, with the half-dozen 
pack-horses and a few spare mounts in the midst; 
and good mail was proof against arrows, but Gilbert 
wished that he had brought fifty archers with him, 
such marksmen as little Alric, his groom. 

There was some fighting every day, when he was 
able to overtake the swift Seljuks in some narrow 
place. They fled when they could, but when they 
were brought to bay they turned savagely and 
fought like panthers, yelling their war-cry: “ Hurr! 
Hurr!” which in the Tartar tongue signifies: “ Kill! 
RU 

But more often the Christians killed them, being 
stronger men and better armed, and Gilbert was ever 
the first to strike ; and one day, as the fiercest of a 
band of Seljuks rode at him, whirling a crooked 
sword and shouting the cry, Gilbert cut off his arm 
at one stroke and it fell to the ground with the fist 


= 


VIA CRUCIS 335 


still grasping the scimitar; whereat Gilbert laughed 
fiercely and mocked the unbeliever’s cry. 

‘Hurrah! Hurrah!” he shouted, as he rode on. 

Then his followers took the cry from him, jeering 
at their enemies, and on that morning they let not 
one escape, but slew them all, saving one man only, and 
took the horses that were alive. But from that time, 
the Christians began to cry, “ Hurrah!” And when 
men shout to-day, ‘“ Hurrah for the king,” they know 
not that they are crying, “ Kill for the king.” 

But Gilbert saw that the place where this hap- 
pened was a very dangerous one, though the entrance 
to it was broad and pleasant, through a high valley 
where there were certain huts in which shepherds 
dwelt, and grass and water. Therefore he turned 
back quickly when the killing was over, and he took 
the chief of the guides by the throat, holding his head 
down upon the pommel of his saddle, and bade him 
show a better way if he would keep his head on his 
shoulders. 

“My lord, there is no other way,” cried the man, 
fright-struck. 

“ Very well,” answered Gilbert, drawing his red 
sword again. ‘If there is no other way, I shall not 
need you any more, my man.” 

When the fellow heard the sheath sucking the 
wet steel, he screamed for terror, crying out that 
there was another way. So they rode back to the 
entrance of the valley, and the man began to lead 
them up a steep track among trees; and above the 
trees they came to a desolate, stony ridge; but still 
they could ride, though it was a very toilsome way. 


336 VIA CRUCIS 


When they had reached the top, after three hours, 
Gilbert saw that he was at the true pass, broad and 
straight, opening down to grassy slopes beyond, be- 
tween crags that would not give a foothold to a goat. 
He rode on a Jittle way farther, and there was a very 
steep path, turning back, round the highest peak, and 
presently he looked down into a small, high valley, 
below which the narrow way led down to the pleasant 
place through which he had first ridden, and he saw 
that a great army could easily be destroyed there by 
a small one lying in ambush. He could see quite 
plainly the dead Seljuks lying as they had fallen, and 
from far and near the great vultures and the kites 
were sailing down from the crags, while the ravens 
and crows that followed his killing day by day were 
flying, and settling, and hopping along the ground, 
and flying again to the places of death. 

He rode back to his men, driving the guide before 
him ; and the man feared for his life continually, and 
reeled in the saddle as if he were drunk. But Gil- 
bert knew that a man well frightened was a man 
gained for what he wanted, so when he had threat- 
ened to cut off his hands and put out his eyes and 
leave him to die among the rocks if he tried to mis- 
guide the army again, he let him live. Then he 
sent ten men back to lead the host on the following 
day, and he remained in the pass to keep it until the 
vanguard should beinsight. He bade his messengers 
tell the King that for his life he must not go into the 
broad valley, though it looked so fair and open. 

Now the Seljuks whom he had met were all dead 
but one young man; but there were many of them, 


VIA CRUCIS 837 


some five thousand, encamped in a great hiding-place 
surrounded by rocks, on the other side of the pass. 
And the one who had escaped went to them, and 
told them what had happened, and that the whole 
French army would surely come up that way cn the 
next day or the day after that. Therefore the Seljuks 
mounted, and came and lay in ambush, and two hun- 
dred of them rode down into the valley and hid 
themselves among the trees where the steep way 
began which was the right way. For they knew 
the mountains, and feared lest at the last moment the 
White Fiend, as they called Gilbert, might find out 
his mistake and choose that path to the pass, and 
save all; whereas on the steep ridge, under cover of 
trees, two hundred chosen bowmen, each with a great 
sheaf of arrows, might turn back a host. So the 
night passed, and Gilbert was undisturbed; but great 
evil was prepared for the army, though his messen- 
gers reached the camp and repeated his words to the 
King before nightfall. 

It lacked two hours of noon when Sir Gaston de 
Castignac and a dozen other knights, and Gilbert’s 
ten men, turned the spur of the mountain where the 
broad green valley opened, having on their right the 
wooded ridge where the two hundred Seljuks were 
hidden. A moment later the Queen herself came up, 
with Anne of Auch and a hundred knights, and she 
supposed that they should have ridden through the 
valley ; but Castignac stopped her and told her what 
the men said, and that they must all begin the ascent 
from that point. The valley was inviting, with its 
pleasant water and its broad meadow, and some of the 

% 


338 VIA CRUCIS 


knights murmured; but when Eleanor heard that 
Gilbert had chosen the steeper way, she had no doubt, 
and bade them all be silent; yet as there was much 
space on the grass, and as the men said that the ascent 
was long, it seemed better to halt awhile before 
beginning to climb. Meanwhile the whole van of 
the army came up, many thousands of men-at-arms 
and knights, and footmen, and after them the gorgeous 
train of ladies, careless and gay, feeling themselves 
safe among so many armed men, and desiring a sight 
of the enemy rather than fearing it. There was 
little order in the march, and hitherto there had been 
little danger ; for the Seljuks meant to destroy them 
in the mountains, and would never have tried battle 
in the open with such a great host. 

Still the troop came on, filling the valley from side 
to side, and pressing up by sheer numbers toward 
the pass; and the King came at last, and with him 
certain Greek guides to whom he listened, and who 
began to make a great outcry, saying that Sir Gil- 
bert was a madman and that no horses could climb 
the ridge. Thereat Gilbert’s men swore that they 
had climbed it on the preceding day, and that even 
a woman could ride up it. And one of the Greeks 
began to laugh at them, saying that they lied; so Sir 
Gaston de Castignac smote him on the mouth with 
his mailed hand, breaking all his teeth, and there was 
a turmoil, and the people began to take opposite sides, 
for many of the King’s men had come up, and he 
himself was for the easy way up the valley. 

Then Eleanor was very angry, and she mounted 
again, calling Gilbert’s men to her side, and her own 


VIA CRUCIS 339 


knights who rode in the van; and she told the King 
to his face that the Guide of Aquitaine had ever led 
them safely, but that whenever the army had fol- 
lowed the King’s guides, evil had befallen. But the 
King would not be browbeaten before the great 
lords and barons, and he swore a great oath that he 
would go by the valley, come what might. There- 
upon Eleanor turned her back on him, wheeling her 
horse short round; and she bade her knights ride up 
the hill to the trees with her, and gave orders that her 
army should follow her, and leave the King to take his 
men by any way he chose. On this the confusion 
became greater than ever, for in the host there were 
thousands of men, half pilgrims, half soldiers, who 
had come of their own accord, as free men, bound 
neither to the King nor the Queen ; there were also the 
Poles and Bohemians, who were independent. All 
these began to discuss and quarrel among themselves. 
Meanwhile the Queen and Anne of Auch rode 
slowly up the hill, straight toward the trees, with 
Castignac and Gilbert’s men before them, and the 
knights of Guienne following closely after ; but none 
of them expected evil, for the place looked peaceful 
in the high sunshine. Eleanor and the Lady Anne 
rode fearlessly in their skirts and mantles, but the 
men were fully armed in their mail and steel caps. 
The foremost were half a dozen spears’ lengths 
from the brushwood when the sharp twang of a bow- 
string broke the stillness, and an arrow that was 
meant for the Queen’s face flew just between her 
and the Lady Anne. The fair woman flushed sud- 
denly at the danger; on the dark one’s forehead a 


840 VIA CRUCIS 


vein stood out, straight from the parting of the hair, 
downward between the eyes. The men spurred 
their horses instantly, and dashed into the wood 
before the Queen could stop them, Castignac first 
by a length, with his sword out. The flight of 
arrows that followed the first shot struck horses and 
men together, and three or four horses went down 
with their riders; but the mail was proof, and the 
men were on their feet in an instant and running 
among the trees, whence came the sound of great 
blows, and the sharp twanging of many bowstrings, 
and the yell of the Seljuks. Now and again an 
arrow flew from among the trees at random, and while 
Hileanor sat on her horse, looking down the hili and 
erying to her knights to come on quickly and join 
in the fight, she did not know that Anne of Auch 
covered her with her body from the danger of a stray 
shaft, facing the danger with a light heart, in the 
hope of the blessed death for which she looked. 

Of those who went in under the trees, none came 
back, while the din of the fight rose louder and 
wilder, by which Eleanor guessed that the enemy 
were very few and were being driven up the hill, 
overpowered by numbers; and lest her own men 
should hamper each other, she stopped them and 
would not allow any more to go up. 

Meanwhile the King looked on from below, saying 
prayers; for he was in mortal dread of wishing that 
the Queen might be killed, since that would have 
been as great a sin as if he had slain her with his 
own hand; so that whereas when there was no pres- 
ent danger he constantly prayed that by some means 


VIA CRUCIS 341 


he might be delivered from the woman of Belial, 
he now prayed as fervently that she might be pre- 
served. As soon as he saw her forbidding a further 
advance, he took it for granted that she intended to 
come back and go up the valley, and he gave the 
signal to his own knights and men to advance in that 
direction, away from the place where the Seljuks 
were fighting. Indeed, there were always many who 
were ready to turn their backs on danger, especially 
of the poorer sort, who were ill-armed ; and immedi- 
ately, with great confusion and much shouting and 
pressing, the main body began to move on quickly, 
spreading out as they went, and completely filling up 
the valley ; but then they were crowded again, as they 
went higher, where the valley narrowed to the pass, 
and at last they were so squeezed and jammed to- 
gether that the horses could hardly move at all. 

The Queen’s ladies, with their great throng of 
attendants and servants, had drawn aside at the 
beginning of the valley, protected by two or three 
thousand men-at-arms, to wait the end of the fight- 
ing, but she herself was still on the spur of the hill 
before the woods. Before long came Sir Gaston de 
Castignac, on foot and covered with blood, his mail 
hacked in many places by the crooked Seljuk swords, 
and his three-cornered shield dinted and battered. 
He came to the Queen’s side and made a grand bow, 
waving his right hand towards the trees, and he 
spoke in a loud voice. 

‘The Duchess’s highway is clear,” he said. ‘The 
way is open and the roadisswept. But the broom—” 

He turned livid and reeled. 


342 VIA CRUCIS 


‘The broom is broken!” he cried, as he fell at 
full length almost under the Arab mare’s feet. 

He had been shot through the middle with an 
arrow, but had lived to tell of victory. In an instant 
the Queen knelt beside him, trying to raise his head; 
and he smiled when he knew her, and died. But 
there were gentle tears in her eyes as she rose to her 
feet and bade them bury the Gascon deep, while she 
herself laid his shield upon his knees, and crossed his 
hands upon his breast. 

Many others died there, and were buried quickly ; 
but the bodies of the Seljuks were dragged aside, 
out of the line of the march ; and it was high noon, 
for all that had happened had taken place in 
about two hours. Yet as the way was long to 
the summit of the pass, those of Gilbert’s men who 
had not been killed urged the Queen to march on 
at once, in order that the camp might be pitched 
by daylight where Gilbert was waiting. So Eleanor 
commanded that all her people should follow her 
in the best order they could keep, and she began 
to ride up the steep way. But in the valley the 
‘King’s army was pressing on and up toward the 
place where Gilbert had fought yesterday, where 
the bones of the slain Seljuks were already white, 
and the gorged vultures perched sleeping in the 
noonday sun. 

Two hours passed, and because the guides knew the 
way well, it being now the third time of their pass- 
ing there, and because the Queen and her vanguard 
were on sure-footed horses, they reached the top in 
that time, and saw Gilbert and the eighty men he 


VIA CRUCIS 343 


still had with him sitting on the rocks in their 
armour, waiting, and their horses tethered near by, 
but saddled and bridled. Then Gilbert stood out 
before the rest and waited for the Queen, who 
cantered forward and halted beside him. She began 
to speak somewhat hurriedly, and she constantly 
looked about her, rather than into his face, telling 
him how they had fought in the wood, and how the 
King and many of the host had gone round by the 
valley. Thereat Gilbert became very anxious. 

“The ladies are following me,” said Eleanor, 
gently, for she knew why he was pale. 

As she spoke, a cry came on the air, wild, distinct 
as the scream of the hungry falcon, but it was the 
ery of thousands. 

hurr ore) Eurr }7 

“The Seljuks are upon them,” said Gilbert, “for 
that cry is from the pass above the valley. God 
have mercy on the souls of Christian men !”’ 

Dunstan, who knew him well, brought his horse at 
the first alarm. 

“By your Grace’s leave,” said Gilbert, taking the 
bridle to mount, “I will take my men and do what I 
can to help them. I have explored the way round 
this mountain, and every man who follows me may 
kill ten Seljuks at an advantage, from above, just as 
the Seljuks are now slaying the King’s men, below 
them.” 

SCH uire lo Eire temetea tay RCL 1:7" 

Ear-piercing, wild, the cry of slaughter came up 
from the valley again and again, and worse sounds 
came now on the clear air, the howls of men 


844 VIA ORUOIS 


pressed together and powerless, slain in hundreds 
with arrows and stones, and the unearthly shrieks 
of horses wounded to death. 

“They are in thousands,” said Gilbert, listening. 
“J must have more men.” 

“] give you my army,” said Eleanor. “Command 
all, and do your best.” 

For one moment Gilbert looked hard at her, scarcely 
believing that she meant the words. But she raised 
herself in her saddle, and called out in a loud voice to 
the hundreds of nobles and knights who had already 
come up. 

“Sir Gilbert Warde commands the army!” she 
cried. “Follow the Guide of Aquitaine!” 

There was light in his face as he silently bowed 
his head and mounted. 

‘‘ Sirs,” he said, when he was in the saddle, “the 
way by which I shail lead you to rescue the King is 
narrow; therefore follow me in good order, two and 
two, all those who have sure-footed horses. But 
beyond the defile as many as a thousand may fight 
without hindering each other. The rest encamp 
here and protect the Queen and her ladies. For- 
ward!” 

He saluted Eleanor and rode away, leaving her 
there. She hesitated and looked longingly after 
him, but Anne of Auch laid a hand upon her 
bridle. 

“Madam,” she said, “your place is here, where 
there is no one to command. And here also there 
may be danger before long.” 

All the time, the dreadful din of fight came up 


VIA CRUCIS 845 


from below, louder and louder. The Seljuks had 
waited until not less than five thousand men, with 
the King himself, had passed through the narrow 
channel from the lower valley and choked the 
upper gorge, pushed on by those behind; and then, 
from their hiding-places among the rocks and trees, 
they had sprung up in their thousands to kill those 
taken in the trap like mice. First came the thick 
flight of their arrows, straight and deadly, going 
down with flashes into the sea of men; and then 
great stones rolled from the heights, boulders that 
crushed the life out of horse and man and rolled 
straight through the mass of human bodies, leaving 
a track of blood behind; and then more arrows, 
darting hither and thither in the sunlight like rock- 
swallows; and again stones and boulders, till the 
confusion and the panic were at their height, and 
the wild Seljuks sprang down the sides of the 
gorge, yelling for death, swinging their scimitars, 
to kill more surely by hand, lest they should waste 
arrows on dead men. 

The blood was ankle-deep in the pass, through 
which more and more of the Christians were driven 
up to the slaughter by those who followed them. 
The King was forcing his way through his own men, 
and with them, toward the side where there were 
most enemies. His sluggish blood was roused at 
last, and his sword was out. Nor was it long before 
he was able to fight hand to hand; but many of 
those around him were slain, because their arms 
were hampered in the close press. The Seljuks 
made room by killing, and climbed upon the slain 


346 VIA CRUCIS 


towards the living. In the vast and screaming din, 
no one could have heard a voice of command, and 
the air was darkening with the steam and reek of 
battle. 

A full hour the Seljuks slew and slew, almost 
unharmed, and the Christians were dead in thou- 
sands under their feet. The King, with a hundred 
followers, was at bay by the roots of a huge oak tree, 
fighting as best he might, and killing a man now and 
then, though wounded in the face and shoulder, and 
sorely spent. But he saw that it was a desperate 
case and that all was lost, and no more of his army 
were coming up to the rescue, because the narrow pass 
was choked with dead. So he began to sing the 
penitential psalms in time with the swinging of his 
sword. 

It was towards evening, for the days were short, 
and the westering sun suddenly poured its light 
straight into the gorge and upon the rising ground 
above. Some of the Christians looked up out of the 
carnage, and the King turned his eyes that way 
when he could spare a glance, and suddenly the sun 
flashed back from the height, as from golden and 
silver mirrors quickly moving, and foremost was an 
azure shield with a golden cross flory, and the Chris- 
tians knew it well. Then a feeble shout went up 
from the few who lived. 

“ The Guide of Aquitaine!” they cried. 

But they were not heard, for suddenly there 
was a louder cry from the Seljuks, and it was 
not their war-yell, but something like a howl of 
fear. 


VIA CRUCIS 347 


“The Wrath of God! The White Fiend!” 

For they were caught in their own trap, and death 
rose in their eyes. On the low heights above the 
gorge a thousand Christians had formed in ranks 
quickly, with lance lowered and sword loose in 
sheath. A moment later, and a steel cap went 
whirling through the air, glancing and gleaming in 
the sun, till it fell among the enemy below, and then 
came the sharp command, the leader’s single word : 

“ Charge: ” 

The Seljuks heard the terrible, quick Guikice 
of armour as the great troop began to move, and 
the Guide of Aquitaine swept down in a storm of 
steel, bareheaded, his fair hair streaming on the 
wind, his eyes on fire in the setting sun, his great 
sword high in air, the smile of destruction on his 
even lips. 

“The White Fiend! The Wrath of God!” 
screamed the Seljuks. 

They tried to fly, but there was no way out, 
for the pass was choked with dead below, and 
they must win or die, every living soul of their 
host. So they turned at bay, joining their strength, 
and standing as they could on heaps of dead bodies. 

There, where they had slain, Gilbert slew them, and 
a thousand blades flashed red in the red sunlight, in 
time with his; and there was a low, sure sound of 
killing as steel went through flesh and bone and 
was wrenched back to strike again. The Seljuks 
fought like madmen and like wild beasts while they 
could; but in Gilbert’s eyes there was the awful light 
of victory, and his arm tired not, while rank upon 


348 VIA CRUCIS 


rank the enemy went down, and the Christians who 
still lived began to smite them from behind. Then 
the pass was filled fuller than before, and a small 
red river leaped down from stone to stone, following 
the channel to the broad valley beyond, where nearly 
fifty thousand powerless men watched it flowing 
among them. But they listened, too, and the Seljuk 
yell grew fainter, because few were left, and there 
were few to cry out. 

The shout of triumphant Christian men came 
ringing down the evening air instead, and fear gave 
way to rejoicing and gladness; for though there 
were many dead in the upper valley, and many 
strong knights and men-at-arms, young and old, 
great and small, lay under the dead Seljuks who had 
killed them, yet the great body of the army was 
alive, the strength of the enemy was broken, and 
Gilbert had saved the King. In truth, he had 
found him in an evil case, with his back against 
the oak tree, and his knights dead around him; three 
of the last Seljuks who lived were still hacking at 
him with their crooked swords, while he sang his 
“De profundis,” for his soul’s good, and used his 
best fence for his body’s safety, hewing away lke 
a strong man and brave, as he was, notwithstand- 
ing his faults; and he was sore spent. 

“Sir,” he said, taking Gilbert’s hand, “ask what 
you will of me, and if it be no sin, you shall have 
it, for you have saved the army of the Cross.” 

But the Englishman smiled and would ask noth- 
ing, for he had honour enough that day. Yet he 
knew not that on the cliff whence he had descended 


VIA CRUCIS 349 


to the valley, there sat two women who dearly loved 
him, watching him from first to last,—the Queen 
and Beatrix. 

There they sat, unconsciously clasping hand in 
hand, and their eyes were wide with fear for him, 
and yet bright with pride of him as they saw the 
splendour of his deeds, how his fair streaming hair 
went ever forward through the Seljuk ranks, and 
how his track was deep and red for others to follow, 
till it seemed not possible that one man could slay 
so many and be unhurt, and a sort of awe came over 
them, as if he were a being beyond nature. 

Neither spoke, nor did either hand loosen on the 
other; but when it was done, and they saw him dis- 
mount, and stand a little apart from other men, rest- 
ing on his sword, with the glory of the sunset in 
his face as he looked down the valley, then Beatrix 
turned to the Queen, and the tears of joy sprang 
to her eyes as she buried her girl’s face in Eleanor’s 
bosom, and she was glad of the kind arms that held 
her, seeming to understand all her joy. But the 
Queen’s eyes were dry, her face was white, and her 
beautiful coral lips were parched as in a fever. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


In this way it came about that Gilbert, of whom the 
historians say that nothing else is known, was placed 
in command of the whole army of Crusaders, to lead 
them through the enemy’s country down into Syria ; 
and so he did, well and bravely. After the great 
battle in the valley there was much fighting still to 
be done, day by day; for the Seljuks retreated foot by 
foot, filling the mountains and sweeping down like 
storm-clouds, to disappear as quickly, leaving blood 
behind them. But Gilbert led the van, and held the 
whole pilgrimage together, commanding where the 
camp should be each night, and ordering the march. 
Men wondered at his wisdom, and at his strength to 
endure hardship ; for all were very tired, and pro- 
vision was scarce, and the Greek hill people sold at 
a tenfold value the little they had to sell, so that the 
soldiers dined not every day, and a dish of boiled 
goat’s flesh was a feast. So the pilgrimage went on 
in fighting and suffering, and as time passed the peo- 
ple were the more in earnest with themselves and 
with one another, looking forward to the promised 
forgiveness of sins when they should have accom- 
plished their vows in the holy places. 

They came down at last from the mountains to 
the sea, to a place called Attalia. Thence Gilbert 
would have led them still by land into Syria; but the 

350 


VIA CRUCIS B51 


King was weary, and the Queen also had seen the 
great mistake she had made in bringing her ladies 
into the pilgrimage; for few had the strength of the 
hardy Anne of Auch, or the spirit of Beatrix, to 
endure without murmuring, like men, and like very 
bravemen. The ladies’ train had become a company 
of complainers, murmuring against everything, long- 
ing for the good things of France, and often crying 
out bitterly, even with tears, that they had been 
brought out to waste their youth and freshness, or 
even their lives, in a wilderness. ‘Therefore Hleanor 
consented at last to the King’s desire, which was to 
take ship from Attalia to Saint Simeon’s Harbour, 
which is close to Antioch. In Antioch also reigned 
her uncle, Count Raymond, a man of her own blood, 
and thinking as she thought; him she now desired 
to see and consult with, because he knew the world, 
and was an honourable man, and of good counsel. 
Yet there was danger there, too, for the King had 
once believed that this Count Raymond loved her, 
when he had been at the court, and the King was 
ever very jealous and sour. 

He would have brought the whole army.to Antioch 
with him, but a great outcry arose; for, whereas 
all the great barons and knights were for the safer 
journey, the poorer sort of pilgrims feared the 
sea more than they feared the Seljuks, and they 
would not take ship. So at last the King let 
them go, and they, not knowing whither they went, 
boasted that they should reach Antioch first. He 
gave them money and certain guides whom he 
trusted. 


hay VIA CRUCIS 


Then Gilbert, seeing that there was a choice of 
two ways, sat down at night and debated what he 
should do. He desired to follow Beatrix with the 
ships, for he had not seen Sir Arnold de Curboil 
since Christmas Eve, and he believed that he had 
gone back to Ephesus to sail for Syria, so that at 
the present time he could not suddenly surprise his 
daughter and carry her away, to force her to a mar- 
riage of which heirs might be born to his great 
possessions in England. Gilbert knew also that his 
command over the whole army was ended, that the 
enemy’s country was now passed, and that all were 
to join forces with Count Raymond to win back 
Edessa in the spring. He should therefore have 
more time and leisure to protect Beatrix if needful; 
and this was a strong thing to move him, for he had 
seen her many times of late, and he loved her with 
all his heart. 

But on the other hand, when he saw how many 
thousands of the poorer people, who had taken the 
Cross in simple faith that God would provide for the 
journey, were about to go up into the passes again, 
to fight their own way through, without King or 
Queen or army, his charity bade him stay with them 
and lead them, as he only could, te live or die with 
them, rather than to go safely by water. So it was 
hard to decide which he should do, and he would not 
see Beatrix, lest she should persuade him; nor would 
he let himself think too much of the people, nor mix 
with them, for they knew him, and honoured him 
greatly, and would have carried him on their 
shoulders to make him their leader if he would. 


VIA CRUCIS 353 


Therefore his debating with himself came to noth- 
ing, and he slept ill. 

In the early morning, as he was walking by the 
seashore, he met the Lady Anne of Auch, with two 
women behind her, coming back from the mass, and 
they stood and talked together. As he looked into 
her face he saw friendship there, and suddenly, 
though he was often slow of impulse, he began to 
tell her his trouble, walking beside her. 

“Sir Gilbert,” she said quietly, “I loved a good 
man, who was my husband, and he loved me; but he 
was killed, and they brought him home to me dead. 
I tell you, Sir Gilbert, that the true love of man and 
woman is the greatest and best thing in all the 
world; but when two love one another, if their 
love be not the greatest thing save honour, then 
it is not true, nor worthy to be reckoned in account. 
Think well whether you love this lady truly, as 
I mean, or not, and if you do, there can be no more 
doubt.” 

“Lady Aune,” said Gilbert, when he had thought 
a little while, “you are a very honourable woman, 
and your counsel is good.” 

After they had talked, they parted, and Gilbert 
went back to his lodging, being determined to go 
to Antioch by sea with the King and Queen; but 
still he was sorry for the poor pilgrims who were 
to be left behind to fight a way through for them- 
selves. 

The great ships that had been hired for the voyage 
were heavy and unwieldy vessels to see, but yet swift 
through the water, whether the vast lateen sails drew 

2A 


354 VIA CRUCIS 


full with a fair wind or were close-reefed in a gale, 
till they seemed mere jibs bent to the long yards, 
or even when in a flat calm the vessels were sent 
along by a hundred sweeps, fifty on each side ; and 
they were partly Greek galleys and partly they 
were of Amalfi, whose citizens had all the commerce 
of the East, and their own quarter in every town 
and harbour, from the Pirzeus round by Constanti- 
nople and all Asia Minor and Egypt, as far as ‘Tunis 
itself. 

A clear northwest wind began to blow on the very 
day fixed for departure, and the big galleys swept 
out one by one, close upon each other, till they 
were outside and hoisted their sails, the sea being 
very smooth under the land; and when they had 
run out two or three miles, with the wind aft, they 
wore ship, one after another, coming to a little, to get 
their sheets in, and then holding off to jibe the great 
sails for the port tack, with much creaking of yards 
and flapping of canvas. Then, as they ran free 
along the coast to the eastward, the wind quartering, 
they got out great booms to windward, guyed fore 
and aft, and down to the forward beaching-hooks at 
the water’s edge, at the first streak under the wales; 
and they set light sails, hauling the tacks well 
out and making the sheet fast after the southern 
fashion, and then swaying away at the halyards, 
till the white canvas was up to the mast-head, 
bellying full, and as steady as the upper half of a 
half-moon. 

Before many days they came to Saint Simeon’s 
Harbour, which was the port of Antioch, and saw 


VIA CRUCIS 355 


the mighty walls and towers on the heights a dozen 
miles inshore; and when Gilbert looked from the 
deck of his ship, he was giad that the army was not 
to besiege that great and strong fortress, since it 
belonged to Count Raymond, the Queen’s uncle. 
But if he had known what things were to happen 
to him there, rather than have ridden up to the 
walled city he would have gone barefoot to Jeru- 
salem, to fulfil his vow as he might. 

Count Raymond, with his broad shoulders and 
bronzed face and dark hair just turning gray at the 
temples, came down to meet the army at the shore; 
and first he embraced the King, according to custom, 
and then he kissed the Queen, his niece, not once, 
but four or five times, and she kissed him, for they 
were very glad to see each other; but it is not true, 
as some have said in their chronicles, that there were 
thoughts of love between them. Queen Eleanor had 
many bitter enemies, and her sins were almost as 
many as her good deeds, but love for Count Ray- 
mond was not among them. 

Nevertheless, King Louis was very jealous as soon 
as he saw the two embracing, for he had always be- 
lieved that there was more than he knew. But he 
said nothing, for he feared his Queen. So there were 
great rejoicings in Antioch, when all the ladies and 
the barons and other nobles were installed there to 
keep Easter together; and though they had still some 
days of fasting during Holy Week, they were so glad 
to be in the great city, and so much lightened of 
trouble by having left the poorer pilgrims to shift 
for themselves, that it. would have been easy for 


356 VIA CRUCIS 


them to live on bread and water, instead of eating 
the dainty dishes of good fish, and the imitations 
of eggs made with flour and saffron and blanched 
almonds, and the delicate sweetmeats, and all the 
many good things which Count Raymond’s fifty 
cooks knew how to prepare for Lent. For the 
Count lived luxuriously, though he was a good 
fichter at need. 

Most of all, he was a keen man, with few scruples, 
and the Queen began to ask him to help her in 
getting her marriage annulled, because she could no 
longer bear to be the wife of a spoon-faced monk, 
as she called the King; whereat Count Raymond 
laughed. Then he thought awhile and bent his 
broad brows; but soon his face cleared, for he had 
found a remedy. ‘The King, he said, was surely 
Eleanor’s cousin and within the prohibited degrees 
of consanguinity, so that the marriage was null 
and void; and the Pope would be obliged against 
his will to adhere to the rule of the Church and pro- 
nounce it so. They were cousins in the seventh 
degree, he said, because the King was descended 
from Eleanor’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, 
William Towhead, Duke of Guienne, whose daugh- 
ter, Adelaide of Poitiers, married Hugh Capet, 
King of France; and the seventh degree of consan- 
guinity was still prohibited, and no dispensation 
had been given, nor even asked for. 

At first the Queen laughed, but presently she sent 
for the Bishop of Metz, and asked him; and he said 
that Count Raymond spoke truly, but that he would 
have nothing to do with the matter, since it had never 


VIA CRUCIS 357 


been the intention of the Church that her rules should. 
be misused. Yet it is said that he was afterwards of 
the Council which declared that there had ‘been no 
marriage. 7 

So, being sure, the Queen went to the King and 
told him to his face that she had meant to marry a 
king, and not a monk as he was, and that she had 
now found out that her marriage was no marriage, 
wherefore he was living in mortal sin; and if he 
would save his soul he must repudiate her as soon 
as they should have returned to France. At this 
the King was overcome with grief and wept bit- 
terly, not because he was to be delivered from the 
woman of Belial, as he had prayed, but because he 
had unwittingly lived in such great sin so many 
years. She laughed and went away, leaving him 
weeping. 

From that time she spent her days and her even- 
ings in consultation with Count Raymond, and they 
were continually closeted together in her apartment, 
which was in one of the western towers of the palace 
and looked out over the city walls towards the sea. 
It was early spring, and the air smelt of Syrian 
flowers and was tender to breathe. 

Although the King was now sure that Eleanor was 
not his wife, he continued to be very jealous of her, 
because he had once loved her in his dull fashion, 
and she was very beautiful. Therefore, when he was 
not praying, he was watching and spying, to see 
whether she were alone with Count Raymond. Cer- 
tain writers have spoken of the great Saladin at this 
time, saying that she met him secretly, for the de- 


858 VIA CRUCIS 


liverance of her kinsman Sandebeuil de Sanzay, whe 
had been taken prisoner, and that she loved Saladin 
for his generosity, and that the King was jealous of 
him ; which things are lies, because Saladin was at 
that time but seven years old. 

Daily, as he watched, the King grew very sure that 
Raymond loved Eleanor, and he swore by his hope 
of salvation that such things should not be. In this 
way the feast of Easter passed, and there were great 
rejoicings, and feastings, and all manner of delight. 
Also during this time Gilbert saw Beatrix freely, so 
that their love grew more and more; but he seldom 
spoke with the Queen, and then briefly. 

Now Eleanor lived in the western tower, and only 
one staircase led up to the vestibule of her apartments, 
by which way Count Raymond came, and the great 
nooies when she summoned them, and the guards 
also. But beyond her inner chamber there was a 
door opening into the long wing of the palace where 
all her ladies were lodged, and by that door she went 
to them and they came to her. Often the Lady 
Anne came in, and Beatrix, and some of the others 
who were more especially her familiars, and they 
found the Queen and Count Raymond sitting in 
chairs, and talking without constraint, and some- 
times playing at chess by the open window which 
looked out on the west balcony. They thought no 
evil, for they knew that he had become her counsel- 
lor in the matter of the repudiation; and Beatrix 
cared not, for she knew well that the Queen loved 
Gilbert, and she never saw him there. 

On an evening in the week after Easter the King 


VIA CRUCIS 359 


determined that he would see the Queen himself and 
tell her his mind. He therefore took two nobles for 
an escort, with torchbearers and a few guards; and 
when he had descended into the main court, he 
walked across to the west side and went up into 
Eleanor’s tower; for he would not go through the 
ladies’ wing, lest his eyes should see some fair and 
noble maiden, or some young dame of great beauty, 
whereby his pious thoughts might be disturbed ever 
so little. 

Having come to the vestibule, he demanded admit- 
tance to the Queen’s chamber; and the young Lord 
of Sanzay, who was in waiting, begged him to wait 
while he himself inquired if the Queen were at leis- 
ure. Then the King was angry, and said that he 
waited for no one, and he went forward to go in. 
But Sanzay stood before the door and bade the 
Gascon guards form in rank and keep it till he 
should come back. The King saw that he had 
small chance of forcing a way, and he stood still, 
repeating some prayers the while, lest he should 
draw his sword and fight, out of sheer anger. Then 
Sanzay came back. 

“My lord King,” he said in a clear voice, “ her 
Grace bids me say that she has no leisure now, and 
that when she has need of a monk she will send 
for him.” 

At the great insult, swords were out as soon as the 
words, and the broken reflections of steel flashed red 
under the high lamps and in the torchlight; for the 
King drew to strike down Sanzay where he stood, and 
his nobles and guards drew with him, while the Gas- 


360 VIA CRUCIS 


cons were as quick as they. But Sanzay would not 
draw bis sword, for he had once saved the King’s life 
in battle, and he thought it not knightly. Then 
some blows were exchanged and blood was shed; but 
presently, being at a disadvantage, the King stepped 
back and lowered his point. 

« Sirs,” he said, “it is not seemly that we of the 
Cross should kill one another. Let us go.” 

When Sanzay heard this, he called his guards back, 
and the King went away discomfited. In the court- 
yard he turned aside and sat down upon a great 
stone seat. 

“ Ketch me Sir Gilbert Warde,” he said, “and let 
him come quickly.” 

He waited silently till the knight came and stood 
before him in his surcoat and mantle, with only his 
dagger in his ‘belt; and the King bade all his at- 
tendants go away to a distance, leaving a torch 
stuck in the ring in the wall. 

He desired of Gilbert that he should take a force 
of trusted men who would obey him, and go up the 
west tower to bring the Queen out a prisoner; for he 
would not stay in Antioch another night, nor leave 
her behind, and he meant to ride down to the har- 
bour and take ship for Ptolemais, leaving the army 
to follow him on the morrow. But for a space 
Gilbert answered nothing. 

At first it seemed to him impossible to do such a 
deed, and but for courtesy he would have turned on his 
heel and left the King sitting there. But as he stood 
thinking, it seemed to him that he had better seem to 
obey, and go and warn the Queen of her danger. 








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VIA CRUCIS 361 


“My lord,” he answered at last, “I will go.” 

Though he said not what he would do, the King 
was satisfied, and rose and went toward his own 
apartments, to order his departure. 

Then Gilbert went and sought out ten iene 
whom he knew, and each of them called ten of their 
men-at-arms, and they took their swords with them, 
and torches; but Gilbert had only his dagger, for 
those he had chosen were all of them Queen’s men 
and would have died for her. So they went together 
up the broad steps of the tower, and the Gascons heard 
the hundred footfalls in fear and much trembling, 
supposing that the King had come back with a great 
force to slay them and go in. Then Sanzay drew 
his sword and stood at the head of the stairs, 
bidding his men keep the narrow way till they 
should all be dead for the Queen’s sake. They 
were Gascons, and were ready to die, but they held 
their breath as they listened to the steady tramping 
on the stone steps below. 

In the torchlight they saw Gilbert’s face, and 
the faces of Queen’s men, and that there were no 
swords out; nevertheless, they kept theirs drawn 
and stood in the doorway, and on the landing 
Gilbert stood still, for they did not make way for 
him. | : 
“Sir Gilbert,” said Sanzay, “I am here to keep 
the Queen’s door, and though we be friends, I shall 
not let you pass while I live, if you mean her any 
violence.” 

“Sir,” answered Gilbert, “I come unarmed, as 
you see, and by no means to fight with you. I pray 


362 V1A CRUCIS 


you, sir, go in and tell the Queen that I am without, 
‘and have her men with me, and would speak with 
her for her safety.” 

Then Sanzay bade his men stand back, and the 
knights and men-at-arms crowded the vestibule, 
while he went in; and immediately he came out 
again, with a clear face. 

“The Queen is alone, and bids the Guide of 
Aquitaine pass,” he said. 

All stood aside, and he, taller than they, and 
grave and keen of face, went in; and the door was 
closed behind him, and within that there was a 
heavy Eastern curtain, so that no voices could be 
heard from one side to the other. 

Eleanor sat under the warm iamplight, near the 
open window, for the night was warm. Her head 
was uncovered, her russet-golden hair fell in great 
waves upon her shoulders and to the ground behind 
her chair, and she wore no mantle, but only a close- 
fitting gown of cream-white silk with deep em- 
broideries of silver and pearls. She was very 
beautiful, but very pale, and her eyes were veiled. 
Gilbert came and stood before her, but she did not 
hold out her hand, as he had expected. 

“ Why have you come to me?” she asked after a 
time, looking out at the balcony, and not at him. 

“The King, Madam, has bidden me take you a 
prisoner to him, in order that he may carry you 
away by sea to Ptolemais and to Jerusalem.” 

While he was speaking, she slowly turned her face 
to him, and stared at his coldly. 

«And you are come to do as you are bidden, get- 


VIA CRUCIS 363 


ting admittance to me stealthily, with men of my own 
who have betrayed me?” 

Gilbert turned white, and then he smiled as he 
answered her. | 

“No. I am come to warn your Grace and to 
defend you against all violence, with my life.” 

Eleanor’s face changed and softened, and again she 
looked out at the balcony. 

*“Why should you defend me?” she asked sadly, 
after a pause. ‘“ What am I to you, that you should 
fight for me? I sent you out to die—why should 
you wish me to be safe?” 

* You have been the best friend to me, and the 
kindest, that ever woman was to man.” 

“A friend? No. I was never your friend. I 
sent you out to death, because I loved you, and 
trusted that I might see you never again, and that 
you might die honourably for the Cross and your 
vows. Instead, you won glory, and saved us all— 
all but me! You owe me no thanks for such friend- 
ship.” 

She looked at him long, and he was silent. 

“Oh, what a man you are!” she cried suddenly. 
“ What a man!” 

He blushed like a girl at the praise, for her soul 
was in the words, and her great love for him, the 
only thing in all her life that had ever been above 
herself. 

“What a man you are!” she said again, more 
softly. ‘Eleanor of Aquitaine, the Queen, the fair- 
est woman in the world, would give you her soul and 
her body and the hope of her life to come—and you 


364 VIA CRUCIS 


are faithful to a poor girl whom you loved when you 
were a boy! A hundred thousand brave men stand 
by to see me die, and you alone take death by the 
throat and strangle him off, as you would strangle a 
bloodhound, with those hands of yours! Isend you 
out—oh, how selfishly !—that you may at least 
die bravely for your vow and leave me at sad peace 
with your memory, and you fight through a hell of 
foes and save the King and me and all, and come 
back to me in glory—my Guide of Aquitaine!” 

She had risen and stood before him, her face dead 
white with passion, and her eyes deep-fired by a love 
that was beyond any telling. And though she would 
not move, her arms went out toward him. 

“How can any woman help loving you!” she 
eried passionately. 

She sank into her chair again, and covered her face 
with her hands. He stood still a moment, and then 
came and knelt on one knee beside her, resting his 
hand upon the carved arm of her chair. 

“T cannot love you, but in so far as I may be 
faithful to another I give you my whole life,” he 
said very gently. 

As he spoke the last words, the curtain of the 
inner apartments was softly raised, and Beatrix 
stood there; for she had thought that the Queen 
was alone. But she heard not the beginning of the 
speech, and she grew quite cold, and could not speak 
nor go away. 

Eleanor’s hands left her face and fell together upon 
Gilbert’s right. 

“I have not mine to give,” she answered in a low 


VIA CRUCIS 365 


voice. “It is yours already — and I would that you | 
were not English, that I might be your sovereign 
and make you great among men—or that I were 
England’s Queen—and that may come to pass, and 
you shall see what I will do for love of you—I 
would marry that boy of the Plantagenets, if it 
could serve you!” 

“Madam,” said Gilbert, “think of your own 
present safety—the King is very angry —” 

“Pid I think of your safety when I sent you out 
to lead us? Now if you are here, am I not safe? 
Gilbert — ” 

She let her voice caress his name, and her lips 
lingered with it, and she laid her hands upon his 
shoulders. As he knelt beside her —she bent to his 
face. 

“ Best and bravest living man” — it was a whisper 
now — “love of my life —heart of my heart — this 
last time — this only once — and then good-by.” 

She kissed him on the forehead, and leapt from 
her seat in horror, for there was another voice in the 
room, with a hurt cry. 

“ Oh, Gilbert! Gilbert!” 

Beatrix was reeling on her feet, and caught the 
curtain, lest she fall, and her face of agony was still 
turned toward the two, as they stood together. Gil- 
bert sprang forward, when he understood, and caught 
the girl in his arms and brought her to the light, 
trembling like a falling leaf. ‘Then she started in 
his arms and struggled wildly to be free, and twisted 
her neck lest he should kiss her; but he held her 
fast. 


866 VIA CRUCIS 


“ Beatrix! You do not understand — you did not 
hear!” He tried to make her listen to him. 

“T heard!” she cried, still struggling. “Isaw! I 
know! Let me go—oh, for God’s sake, let me go!” 

Gilbert’s arms relaxed, and she sprang back from 
him two paces, and faced the Queen. 

“You have won!” she cried, in a breaking voice. 
“ You have him body and soul, as you swore you 
would! But do not say that I have not understood !” 

“T have given him to you, soul and body,” answered 
Eleanor, sadly. “ Might I not even bid him good-by, 
as a friend might?” 

“You are false —falser each than the other,” 
answered Beatrix, in white anger. ‘ You have played 
with me, tricked me, made me your toy —” 

“Did you hear this man say that he did not love 
me, before I bade him good-by?” asked Eleanor, 
gravely, almost sternly. 

“ He has said it to me, but not to you, never to you 
—never to the woman he loves!” 

“JT never loved the Queen,” said Gilbert. “On 
my soul —on the Holy Cross — ” 

‘Never loved her? And you saved her life before 
mine —”’ . 

* And you said that I did well —” 

“ It was all a lie —a cruel lie—” The girl’s voice 
almost broke, but she choked down the terrible tears, 
and got words again. “It would have been braver 
to have told me long ago —I should not have died 
then, for I loved you less.” 

Eleanor came a step nearer and spoke very quietly 
and kindly. 


VIA CRUCIS 367 


“You are wrong,” she said. “Sir Gilbert is sent 
by the King to take me as a prisoner, that I may be 
carriéd away to Jerusalem this very night. Come, 
you shall hear the voices of the soldiers who are 
waiting for me.” 

She led Beatrix to the door and lifted the curtain, 
so that through the wooden panels the girl could hear 
the talking of many voices, and the clank of steel. 
Then Eleanor brought her back. 

‘“ But he would not take me,” she said, “and he 
warned me of my danger.” 

“No wonder — he loves you!” 

*‘ He does not love me, though I love him, and he 
has said so to-night. And I know that he loves you 
and is faithful to you—” 

Beatrix laughed wildly. 

“ FWaithful! He? There is no faith in his greatest 
oath, nor in his smallest word !” 

‘¢ You are mad, child; he never lied in all his life 
to me or you — he could not le.” 

‘Then he has deceived you, too— Queen, Duchess ; 
you are only a woman, after all, and he has made 
sport of you, as he has of me!” Again she laughed, 
half furiously. 

“Tf he has deceived me he has indeed deceived 
you,” answered Eleanor, “for he has told me very 
plainly that he loves you. And now I will not stand 
between you and him, even in the mistake you made. 
I love him, yes. I have loved him enough to give him 
up, because he loves you. I love him so well that I 
will not take his warning and save myself from the 
King’s anger, and I know not what he and his 


368 VIA CRUCIS 


monks will do tome. Good-by, Sir Gilbert Warde 
— Beatrix, good-by.” 

“This is some comedy,” answered the girl, ex- 
asperated. 

“No—by the living truth, it is no comedy,” 
answered the Queen. 

She looked once more into Gilbert’s face, and 
then turned away, stately and sad. With one 
movement she drew aside the great curtain, and with 
the next she opened wide the door, and the loud 
clamour of the knights and men-at-arms came in like 
a wave. Then it ceased suddenly, as Eleanor spoke 
to them in ciear tones. 

‘Tam the King’s prisoner. Take me to him!” 

There was silence for a moment, and then the Gas- 
cons who had fought with the King and his men eried 
out fiercely. 

“ We will not let you go! We will not let our 
Duchess go!” 

They feared some evil for her, and were loyal men 
to her, hating the King. But Eleanor raised her 
hand to motion them back, for their faces were fierce, 
and their hands were on their swords. 

“ Make way for me, if you will not take me to him,” 
she said proudly. 

Then Sanzay, her kinsman, stepped before the rest, 
and. spoke. : 

“Madam,” he said, “the Duchess of Gascony can- 
not be prisoner to the King of France, while there 
are Gascons. If your Grace will go to the King, 
we will go also, and we shall see who is to be a 
prisoner.” 


VIA CRUCIS 369 


Ai this there was a great shout that rang up to 
the vault of the lofty vestibule, and down the stcne 
steps and out into the courtyard. Eleanor, smiled 
serenely, for she knew her men. 

‘*Go with me, then,” she said, “and see that no 
bodily harm comes tome. But in this matter I shall 
do the King’s will.” 

In the room behind, the words echoed clearly, and 
Beatrix turned to G1 ibert. 

“You see,” she said, “it is but a play that you 
have thought of between you, and nothing more.” 

“Can you not believe us?” he asked reproachfully. 

“T shall believe you when I know that you love 
me,” she answered, and turned away, towards the 
door of the inner apartments. 

Gilbert followed her. 

“Beatrix!” he cried. “Beatrix! Hear me!” 

She turned once more, with a face like stone. 

“YT have heard you, I have heard her, and I do 
not believe you,” she answered. 

Without another word she ieft him and went out. 
He stood looking after her for a moment, while his 
calm face darkened slowly ; and his anger was slow 
and lasting, as the heating of a furnace for the smelt- 
ing. He stooped and picked up his cap, which had 
fallen to the floor, and then he, too, followed the 
Queen, through the vestibule and stairs and court- 
yard, to the King’s presence. 

2B 


CHAPTER XXIV 


THAT night they left hastily and went down to 
the sea with torches; but it was dawn when they 
were on board one of the great suips, and the hawsers 
were cast off, and the crew began to heave up 
the anchor. In his anger, Gilbert had called his men, 
and had gone on board also, and many hours passed 
before he realized what he had done. ‘Then he be- 
gan to torment himself. 

His angry manhood told him that he was just 
and that he should not bear a girl’s unbelief when 
he was manifestly in the right; and his love an- 
swered that he had left Beatrix without protection 
and perhaps at the mercy of her father, since he might 
come by sea at any moment and claim her from 
Count Raymond, who would give her up without 
opposition. He wondered also why Sir Arnold had 
not appeared, and whether, having sailed from 
Ephesus, he had been shipwrecked. But his thoughts 
soon turned back to his work, and he sat on the low 
rail by the main-rigging, looking down at the blue 
water as the ship ran smootlily along. What was 
there in Beatrix to hold him, after all? It was 
nothing but a boyish memory, revived by a mis- 
taken idea of faith. 

But suddenly he felt within him the aching hollow 
and the grinding hunger of heart that the loved 

370 


VIA CRUCIS 371 


woman leaves behind her, and he knew well that his 
anger was playing a comedy with him, as Beatrix 
had accused him and the Queen of playing a play in 
the past night. ; 

It was hard that she ‘should not have believed 
him; and yet when one has seen and heard, it is 
harder still to believe against sight and hearing. If 
she had loved him, he said to himself, she could not 
have doubted him. He would never have doubted 
her, no matter what he might have seen her do. But 
at this he began to realize and understand ; for in 
order to persuade himself, he pictured her sitting as 
the Queen had sat, and a man bending over her and 
kissing her and calling her the love of his life and 
heart, and he felt another sort of anger rising fiercely 
in him, because the imagined sight was vivid and 
bad to see. Thereupon he grew calmer, seeing that 
she was not wholly wrong, and he began to curse his 
evil fate and to wish that he had not followed the 
Queen, but had stayed behind at Antioch. 

But it was too late now, for Antioch was gone in 
the purple distance, and it was towards evening. 

The day dawned again, and darkened, and days 
after that, while he perpetually blamed himself more 
and more and began to find a fault in every doing of 
his life, and the gloom of the northern temper settled 
upon him and oppressed him heavily, so that his 
companions wondered what had happened to him. 

During all that time the Queen never showed her- 
self, but remained in her cabin with the Lady Anne, 
who had come with her and would not be denied. 
For Eleanor hated to see the King, and she was 


S12 VIA CRUCIS 


afraid to see Gilbert, whom she knew to be in the 
ship’s company, and she was very sad, also, and 
cared not for the daylight nor for men’s voices. It 
made it worse that she had tried to sacrifice herself 
for the woman Gilbert loved, since it had been in 
vain, and she had not been believed, and since he had 
after all come with her, she knew not why. As for the 
King, he sat all day long on the quarter-deck under 
an awning, telling beads, and praying fervently that 
the presence of the woman of Belial might not dis- 
tract his thoughts when he should at last come to 
the holy places; for before anything else he con- 
sidered his own soul as of great importance. 

So they came to Ptolemais, which some called 
Acre, and they rode a weary way to Jerusalem, till 
the young King Baldwin of Jerusalem, the third of 
that name, came out to meet them with a very rich 
train. Then Gilbert lagged behind, for he had no 
heart in any rejoicing or feasting, seeing that he 
should not have been there at ail, and had left 
Beatrix in anger. But Eleanor had come out of the 
ship to the shore, more beautiful than ever, and 
serenely scornful of the King, since he had not even 
dared to use the power she had put into his hands, 
in order to tell her his mind, and speak out his 
reproaches ; and he was more ridiculous than ever in 
her eyes. From that time she paid no more attention 
to him than if he had not existed, for she despised a 
man who would not use the power he had. 

As for Gilbert, though he was in such melancholy 
mood, when he saw the walls and towers of Jeru- 
salem at last, a hope of peace sprang up in him, 


VIA CRUCIS 3874 


and a certainty of satisfaction not like anything which 
he had known before ; and it seemed to him that if 
he could but be alone in the holy places he should 
find rest for his soul. ‘Therefore he rode in the rear 
of the train, though he was a man of consequence, 
and many young knights and squires looked up to 
him and kept him company, so that he could not 
escape altogether to an outward solitude. 

His eyes looked up before him, and he saw the 
holiest city in the world, like a vision against the 
pale sky, as the day sank ; and his whole being went 
out to be there, floating before him in a prayer 
learnt long ago. ‘Therein, as when he had been a 
child in his English home, he heard the voice of a 
guardian angel praying with him — praying for the 
good against the evil, for the light against the dark- 
ness, for the clean against the unclean, for the good 
self against the bad; and his heart made echoes in 
heaven. 

He heard not the sounds that came back from the 
royal train, the high talking and glad laughter; for 
that would have jarred on him and set his teeth on 
edge, and he had shut the doors of the body upon 
himself to be alone within. It mattered not that 
young Baldwin was riding by the Queen, already 
half in love, and making soft speeches within sight 
of the hill whereon Christ died, nor that he took a 
boy’s mischievous pleasure in interrupting the King’s 
droning litany, recited in verse and response with 
the priest at his side; nor that some of the knights 
were chattering of what lodging they should find, 
and the young squires, in undertones, of black-eyed 


3T4 VIA CRUCIS 


Jewish girls, and the grooms of Syrian wine. They 
were as nothing, all these, as nothing but the shad- 
ows of the world cast by its own ancient evil at the 
foot of the Cross, and he only was real and alive, 
and the Cross only was true and high in the pure 
light. 

And in this he was not quite dreaming, for the 
train that rode up from Acre was not all of those 
true Crusaders of whom many had been with the 
army, both rich and poor, but of whom the rich had 
stayed behind in Antioch and the poor had perished 
miserably by the swords of the Seljuks or by the 
wiles of the Greeks, when they had tried to come 
on by land; and many of them had been sold into 
slavery, and not one reached Jerusalem alive, out of 
so many thousands. Of the forty or fifty who were 
first in sight of the City, scarcely three were in heart- 
felt earnest, and they were the Lady Anne of Auch, 
and Gilbert Warde, and the King himself. But with 
the King all faith took a material shape, which was 
his own, and the buying of his own salvation had 
turned his soul into a place of spiritual usury. 

The Lady Anne was calm and silent, and when 
young Baldwin spoke to her she hardly heard him, 
and answered in few words, little to the point. She 
had trusted that she might never see Jerusalem, for 
she had hoped to die of wound or sickness by the 
way, and so end in heaven, with him she had lost, 
the pilgrimage begun on earth. For she was a most 
faithful woman, and of the most faithful there is 
often least to tell, because they have but one thought, 
one hope, one prayer. And seeing that she had come 


VIA CRUCIS 375 


through alive, she neither rejoiced nor complained, 
knowing that there was more to bear before the end, 
and trusting to bear it all bravely for the dear sake 
of her dead love. It may be, also, that she was the 
most earnest of all those who had taken the Cross, 
because all earthly things that had made her life 
happy had been taken from her. 

Yet of all men, Gilbert Warde had fought best and 
most, and in so far as bodily peril was counted, none 
had lived through so much as he; for many of his 
companions had been killed beside him, and others 
had taken their place, and even his man Dunstan had 
been wounded twice, and little Alric once, and many 
horses had been killed under him, but he himself was 
untouched, even after the great battle in the valley; 
and there were honours for him whenever he was 
seen. In this, too, he was high-hearted and thought- 
less of himself, that when he saw the Holy City 
before him, he forgot the many risks of life and 
limb, and the hunger and cold and weariness through 
which he had passed, and forgot that he had won 
reward well and fairly, thinking only that the peace 
he felt came as a gift from Heaven. 

That evening, when there was a feast in Baldwin’s 
palace, the Lady Anne was not there; and when the 
King of France called for the Guide cf Aquitaine to 
present him to the King of Jerusalem, he was not in 
the hall nor within the walls; and by and by the 
Queen herself rose and went out, leaving the two 
Kings at table. 

For Gilbert had gone fasting to the Holy Sepul- 
chre, with Dunstan bearing his shield, and with a man 


376 VIA CRUCIS 


to lead them. Then he went into the vast church 
which the crusaders had built to enclose all the sacred 
ground, and little lights broke the darkness here and 
there, without dispelling it, but the poor Christian who 
led Gilbert had a taper inhis hand. The knight came 
first to the deep-red stone whereon Nicodemus and 
Joseph of Arimathea anointed the body of the Lord 
for burial, and there kneeling down, he set his shield 
and sword before him and prayed that he might yet 
use them well. Then the man took him to the Gol- 
gotha, and he laid down his arms before him and 
stood trembling, as if he were afraid, and the drops 
of sweat stood out upon his forehead. and his low 
voice shook like a little child’s when he prayed in the 
place where God died forman. Afterwards he knelt 
and touched the stones with his face, and spread out 
his arms crosswise, not knowing what he did. But 
when he had lain thus some time he rose and took 
up his shield and sword, and the man led him farther 
through the darkness to other places. So at last 
they brought him to the Tomb, and he sent away the 
man who had guided him, and bade Dunstan go back 
also; but he would not. 

“T also have fought for the Cross, though I be but 
a churl,” said the dark-faced man. 

“You are no churl,” answered Gilbert, gravely. 
*‘ Kneel beside me and watch.” 

“J will watch with you,” said Dunstan, and he 
took his own sword and laid it next to Giibert’s. 

But he knelt one step behind his master, on his 
left side. More than forty burning lamps hung 
above the stone of the Tomb, and around the 


VIA CRUCIS 377 


stone itself stood a grating of well-wrought iron 
having a wicket with a lock of pure gold. : 

Then Gilbert raised his eyes, and looking through 
the iron fence, he saw that on the other side some one 
was kneeling also, and it was the Lady Anne of Auch, 
robed all in black, with a black hood half thrown back; 
but her face was white, with dark shadows, and her 
two white hands clasped two of the iron stanchions, 
while her sad eyes looked upwards fixedly, seeing a 
vision, and not seeing men. Gilbert was glad that 
she was there. 

So they knelt an hour, and another hour, and no 
sound broke the stillness, nor did they feel any 
weariness at all, for their hearts were lifted up, and 
for a time the world fell away from them. Then a 
soft sound of footsteps was in the church, ceasing 
at some distance from the Tomb, which was not then 
shut off within walls of its own. But none of the 
three turned to see who was there, and there was 
silence again. 

Eleanor had come alone to the Sepuichre, and stood 
gazing at the three, not willing to come nearer. 
As she looked, her sins rose in her eyes and 
passed before her, many and great, and where her 
good deeds were hidden in her soul there was dark- 
ness, and she despaired of forgiveness, for she knew 
her own pride, that it could never be broken in her. 
She looked on that most faithful woman, and on that 
maiden knight whom she so dearly loved, sinning 
daily in her heart for him, and yet for his sake fight- 
ing her loving thoughts ; and she would not have 
dared to go forward and kneel beside the pure in 


878 VIA CRUCIS 


heart, in the holy light. All alone she drew back, 
and when she was so far that they could not have 
seen her, had they looked, she knelt down by a pillar, 
and drew her dark veil over her face, folding her 
hands in the hope of forgiveness and peace, and in 
great loneliness. 

Some comfort she found in this, that for the great 
love of her life, the like of which she had not known 
nor was to know again, though she had wished evil 
and dreamed of sweetest sins, she had done a little 
good at the last, and that the man who knelt there 
praying had grown stronger and greater and of 
higher honour by her means. Yet the comfort was 
not of much worth in her loneliness, since she had 
given him to another, and none could take his place. 
Then she said prayers she knew, but they had no 
meaning, and she gazed trom beneath her veil at the 
place where the Lord had lain; but she felt nothing, 
and her heart was as stone, believing what she saw, but 
finding no light of faith for her in the divine beyond. 

At last she rose softly, as she had knelt, and 
leaning against the pillar, she looked long at the 
man she loved, and at the shield with the cross of 
Aquitaine, and, in it, at the spot she had once so 
fervently kissed. Her hand went to her heart, where 
it hurt her, and with the hurt came the great pure 
longing that, come what might to herself, all might be 
well with him; and her lips moved silently, while her 
eyes would have given him the world and its glory. 

“God, let me perish, but keep him what he is!” 

Shall any one say that such true prayers are not 
heard, because they are spoken by lips that have 


VIA CRUCIS 379 


sinned? If not, God is not good, nor did Christ die 
to save men. 

The daughter of princes, the wife of two kings, 
as she was to be, and the mother of two kings, and 
of many more in line after them, she drew down her 
veil that none might see her face under the dim 
lights, and she went out thence, very lonely and 
sad, into the streets of Jerusalem. 

At midnight came a priest of the church to trim 
the lights at the tomb; yet the three did not move, 
and he prayed awhile and went away. But when 
the watchmen cried the dawning, and their voices 
came faintly in by the doorway, floating through 
the dark church, Gilbert rose to his feet, and Dun- 
stan with him, and they took their arms with them, 
and went away, leaving the Lady Anne the last of 
them all, her white hands still clasping the iron bars, 
her sad black eyes still turned to heaven. 

Faint streaks were in the eastern sky, but it was 
still almost dark as the two men turned to the left 
to follow the way by which they had come. Three 
steps from the door, Dunstan stumbled against 
something neither hard nor soft, and in many fights 
he had learned what that thing was. 

‘There is a dead man here,” he said, and Gilbert 
had stopped also. 

They stooped down, trying to see, and Dunstan 
felt along the body, touching the mantle, till he 
found something sharp, which was the point of a 
dagger out of its sheath. 

“He is a knight,” said Dunstan, “for he wears 
his surcoat and sword-belt under his mantle.” 


886 VIA CRUGCIS 


But Gilbert was gazing into the face, trying to 
see, while the dust under the head grew slowly 
grey in the dawn, and the waxen features seemed 
to rise up out of the earth before him. But then he 
started, for, as he looked down, his own eyes were 
but a hand-breadth from an arrow-head that stuck 
straight up out of the dead forehead, and the broken 
shaft with its feathers darkly soiled lay half under 
the body. Dunstan also looked, and a low sound of 
gladness came from his fierce lips. 

“Tt is Arnold de Curboil !” exclaimed Gilbert, in 
measureless surprise. 

“ And this is Alric’s arrow,” answered Dunstan, 
looking at the point, and then handling the piece of 
the broken shaft. “This is the arrow that was 
sticking in your cap on that day when we fought for 
sport in Tuscany, and Alric picked it up and kept 
it. And often in battle he had but that one left, and 
would not shoot, saying that it was only to be shot 
to save his master’s life. So now it has done its 
work, for though the knight was shot from behind, 
he has his dagger in his dead hand under his 
cloak, and he must have followed you to the door of 
the church to kill you in the dark within. Well 
done, little Alric !” 

Then Dunstan spat in the face of the dead man 
and cursed him; but Gilbert took his man by the 
collar and pulled him aside roughly. 

“It is unmanly to insult the dead,” he said, in — 
disgust. 

But Dunstan laughed savagely. 

“ Why?” he asked. “He was only my father!” 


VIA CRUCIS 381 


Gilbert’s hand relaxed and fell to his side, then he 
lifted it again and laid it gently on Dunstan’s shoulder. 

* Poor Dunstan!” he said. 

But Dunstan smiled bitterly and said nothing, for 
he thought himself poor indeed, since if the dead 
man had given him a tenth of his due, he should 
have had land enough for a knight. 

“ We cannot leave him here,” said Gilbert, at last. 

“Why not? ‘There are dogs.” 

Dunstan took up his master’s shield and without 
more waiting turned his back on his father’s body. 
But Gilbert stood where he was, and gazetl down 
into the face of the man who had done him so 
.much harm; and he remembered Faringdon and the 
swift stroke that had killed his father, and Stortford 
woods, where he himself had lain for dead. He still 
saw in dreams how Curboil snatched his dagger left- 
handed from its sheath, and now, by strong associa- 
tion, he wished to see whether it were still the same 
one, a masterpiece of Eastern art, and he stooped 
down in the dawn to pull back the cloak and take 
the weapon. It was the same, fair and keen, with 
the chiselled hilt. He stuck it into his own belt, 
for a memory, for it had once been sheathed in his 
own side; then he drew the cioak over the dead face 
and went his way, just as the hushed city began to 
stir, following Dunstan to his lodging, musing on the 
strange chances of his life, and glad that, since his 
enemy was to die, it had not been his ill chance to 
soil the blade consecrated to the Cross with blood 
so vile, and to slay with his own hand the father 
of the woman he loved. 


382 VIA CRUCIS 


Now also, as he thought calmly, he guessed that 
Beatrix must be in Jerusalem, and that Curboil, 
having taken her from Antioch, and meaning to kill 
his enemy before he sailed back to England, had 
brought his daughter with him, fearing lest she should 
escape him again and find refuge against him. 

He found little Alric sitting on the low doorstep 
of the house where he lodged, his stolid Saxon face 
pink and white in the fresh dawn, and his thick 
hands hanging idly over his knees, while the round 
blue eyes stared at the street. He got up when 
Gilbert came near, and pulled off his woollen cap. 

“ Well done, Alric,” said Gilbert. ‘That is the 
second time you have saved my life.” 

“It was a good arrow,” answered Alric, thought- 
fully. “I carried it two years and made it very 
sharp. It is a pity the man broke the shaft with 
his head when he fell, and I would have cut off the 
steel point to use it again, but I heard footsteps and 
ran away, lest I should be taken for a thief.” 

‘It was well shot,” said Gilbert, and he went in. 


CHAPTER XXV 


It had been early dawn when they had found Sir 
Arnold dead; it was toward evening when Gilbert 
and Dunstan followed a young Jew to the door of 
a Syrian house in a garden of the old quarter of 
the city, toward the Zion gate. All day they 
had searched Jerusalem, up and down, through the 
narrow streets of whitened houses, inquiring every- 
where for a knight who had lately come with his one 
daughter, and no one could tell them anything ; for 
Sir Arnold had paid well to find a retired house, 
where Beatrix might be safely guarded while he went 
out to seek Gilbert and kill him, and where he himself 
could hide if there were any pursuit. So they asked 
in vain, till at last they saw a boy sitting by the way- 
side on the hill of the Temple, weeping and lamenting 
in the Eastern fashion. The guide, who was also a 
Jew, asked him what had chanced, and he said that 
his father was gone on a journey, leaving him, his 
young son, in the house with his mother. And there 
had come a Christian knignt with a daughter and 
her woman and certain servants, desiring to hire the 
house for a time because it was in a pleasant place; 
and they had let him have it, he promising by an 
interpreter to pay a great price; but he had not yet 
paid it. In the morning the young man had seen 
Christians carrying away the body of this knight to 

383 


384 VIA CRUCIS 


bury it; and he had been to the house, but the 
knight’s servants would not let him in, and did not 
understand his speech, and threatened to beat him ; 
and now he was afraid lest his father should come 
home unawares and take him and his mother to 
account for letting strangers use the house without 
even paying for it beforehand. 

When Gilbert saw that he had found what he 
sought, he first gave money to the boy, to encourage 
him, and bade the interpreter tell him to lead them 
all to the house, saying that Gilbert himself would 
enter, in spite of the servants. The boy took the 
money, and when he had measured Gilbert with his 
eye, he understood, and went before them with no 
more weeping; and the knight’s step was light and 
quick with hope, for he had begun to doubt whether 
Beatrix were really in the city after all. 

The house was low and white, and stood at the 
end of a small garden in which there were palms, 
and spring flowers growing in straight lines between 
' gmall hewn stones, laid so as to leave little trenches 
of earth between them. There was a hard path, 
newly swept, leading to the square door of the house, ° 
and on the doorpost were clearly written certain 
characters in Hebrew. 

Gilbert knocked on the door, not loudly, with the 
hilt of his dagger, but no one answered; and 
again louder, but there was no sound from within. 
Then he shook the door, trying whether it would 
open of itself by a push; but it was fast, and the two 
windows of the house that looked out on each side 
of the door were barred also. 


VIA CRUCIS 385 


“They think that some great force is with us, and 
ae afraid,” said the Jewish boy. ‘Speak to them, 
sir, for they do not understand my tongue.” 

And the interpreter explained what he said. Then 
Gilbert spoke in English, for he supposed that Cur- 
boil’s men must be Englishmen, but the Jewish boy 
knew that the words should sound otherwise. 

“In Greek, sir! Speak to them in Greek, for 
they are all Greeks. That is why they are afraid. 
All Greeks are afraid.” 

The interpreter began to speak in Greek, clear and 
loud, but no sound came. Yet when Gilbert put his 
ear to the door he thought that he heard something 
like a child’s moaning. It had a sound of pain in it, 
and his blood rose at the thought that some weak 
creature was being hurt. So he took little Alric’s 
leathern belt, such as grooms wear, and bound it 
round his hand to guard the flesh, and he struck the 
door where the leaves joined in the middle, once and 
twice and three times, and it began to open inward, 
so that they could see the iron bolt bent half double. 
Then with his shoulder he forced it in, so that the 
bolt slipped from the socket, and the leaves flew open. 

There was a little court within, around which the 
house was built, with a well for rain-water in the 
middle, after the fashion that was half Roman and 
half Eastern. Gilbert went in, and bade all be 
siient that he might hear whence the moaning came ; 
for it was more distinct now, and it seemed to come 
from the well, with a little splashing of water; so he 
went and looked down, and when he saw what was 
there he cried aloud for fear. 

20 


386 VIA CRUCIS 


For there he saw an upturned face, half dead, with 
a white thing bound across the mouth, and hands tied 
together, and struggling to strike the water, but heav- 
ily weighted ; and it was the face of Beatrix, two 
fathoms below him. ‘There were holes opposite each 
other, in the two sides of the well, for a man’s hands 
and feet, for climbing down into the cistern; and 
Gilbert lost no moment, but began to descend at once ; 
yet long before he had got the bound hands together 
in his own, stooping and himself in peril of falling, 
the face had sunk below the bubbling water. 

With his feet firmly planted in the holes, and 
standing as it might be astride of the well, he lifted 
the girl up; and though she was so slight, it was one 
of the hardest things he ever had to do, for her 
clothes were full of water, and he was at a disadvan- 
tage; nor could his men help him till he had raised 
her so high that he could rest her weight on his 
right knee and against his own body. ‘Then the 
others climbed down and slipped their belts under 
her arms, and she was taken out in safety and laid 
upon the pavement of the little court. And then 
the Jewish boy went to call his mother from the 
house of her sister, where they two had gone to live, 
for Beatrix had need of a woman. 

Gilbert knelt down and laid her head upon Dun- 
stan’s coat folded together, and covered her with his 
own mantle, gazing into the unconscious face, small 
and pale and pitiful, and he remembered how he had 
seen it last in Antioch, full of anger and unbelief, so 
that he had turned and left what he loved just when 
evil was at hand; and his heart stood still, and then 


VIA CRUCIS 387 


smote him in his breast, and stood still again, as the 
smith’s hammer is poised in the air between the strokes. 

Beatrix did not move and seemed not to breathe, 
lying as one dead, and suddenly Gilbert believed 
that there was no life left in her. He tried to speak 
to Dunstan, but he could make no sound, for his 
tongue and his throat were suddenly parched and 
paralyzed, so that he was dumb in his grief; but he 
took the small white hands, with the wrists all cut by 
the cords, and folded them upon the breast, and he 
took his cross-hilted dagger with its sheath, and laid 
it between the hands for a cross, and gently tried to 
close the half-opened eyes. 

Then, when Dunstan saw what his master meant, 
he touched him on the shoulder and spoke to him. 

‘¢ She is not dead,” he said. 

Gilbert started and looked up at him, and saw that 
he was in earnest; but the man’s lean face was drawn 
with anxiety. 

« Sir,” said Dunstan, “will you let me touch the 
Lady Beatrix?” 

The knight’s brow darkened, for that a churl’s 
hands should touch a high-born lady’s face seemed 
to him something monstrous and against nature; but 
in the moment he had forgotten something. 

“¢ She is quite dead,” he tried to say. 

Then Dunstan spoke sadly, kneeling down beside 
her. 

“This lady is half my sister,” he said. “I have 
some skill with half-drowned persons. Let me save 
her, sir, unless we are to let her die before our eyes. 
A gipsy taught me what to do.” 


388 VIA CRUCIS 


The cloud passed from Gilbert’s face, but still he 
did not believe. 

“In heaven’s name, do what you can, try what you 
know, and quickly !” he said. 

“ Help me, then,” said Dunstan. 

So he did as all skilled persons know how to do 
with half-drowned people, though only the gipsies 
knew it then. They turned her body gently so that 
the clear water ran from her parted lips, and laying her 
down again, they took her arms and drew them over 
her head, stretched them out, and brought them down 
to her sides, again and again, so as to make her 
breathe, and the breath was drawn in and breathed 
out again with a delicate foam that clung to her lips. 

Still Sir Gilbert did not believe, and though he 
helped his man, in the despair of the instant, and in 
the horror of losing the least chance of life, it all 
seemed to him a desecration of the most dear dead, 
and more than once he would have let the poor little 
arm rest, rather than make it limply follow the 
motion Dunstan gave to the other. 

“She is quite, quite dead,” he said again. 

s‘ She is alive,” answered Dunstan; ‘stop not now 
one moment, or we shall lose her.” 

His dark face glowed, and his unwinking eyes 
watched her face for the least sign of life. Ten 
minutes, a quarter of an hour, passed, and time 
seemed facing death —the swift against the immoy- 
able and eternal. Gilbert, the strong and master- 
ful in fight, humbly and anxiously watched his 
man’s looks for the signs of hope, as if Dunstan had 
been the wisest physician of all mankind; and 





VIA CRUCIS 889 


indeed in that day there were few physicians who 
knew how to do what the man was doing. And 
at last the glow in his face began to fade, and Gil- 
bert’s heart sank, and the horror of so disturbing 
the dead came upon him tenfold, so that he let the 
slender arm rest on the stones, and sighed. But 
Dunstan cried out fiercely to him. 

“For your life, go on! She is alive! See! 
See 1” 

And even as Gilbert sadly shook his head in the 
last collapse of belief, the long lashes quivered a 
little with the lids and were still, and quivered 
again, and then again, and the eyes cpened wide 
and staring, but broad awake; and then the deli- 
cate body shook and was half convulsed by the 
miracle of life restored, and the slight arms quick- 
ened with nervous strength, resisting the men’s 
strong hands, and a choking cough brought the 
bright colour to the pale cheeks. 

Then Gilbert lifted her from the pavement to the 
stone rim of the well, that she might breathe better, 
and presentiy the choking ceased, so that she lay 
quite still with her head against his breast, and her 
weight in his arms. But still she did not speak, 
and the man’s heart beat furiously with joy, and 
then stood still in fear, lest the worst should come 
again, whereof there was no danger; but he did not 
know, and Dunstan and Alric were suddenly gone, 
seeking wine in the house. Just when the girl 
seemed to be sinking into a swoon they brought a 
short draught of Syrian wine in an earthen cup; for 
little Alric was not wise, but he would have found 


390 VIA CRUCIS 


wine in the sandy desert, and he had gone straight to 
a corner where a leathern bottle with a wooden plug 
was hung up in a cool place. 

Beatrix drank, and revived again, and looked up 
to Gilbert. 

“JT knew you would come,” she said faintly, and 
she smiled, but Gilbert could not speak. 

By this time the Jewish boy had brought his 
mother, and they carried the girl into a room, and the 
woman took care of her kindly, fearing lest a Chris- 
tian should die in her husband’s house, and also 
lest she should not be paid the value of the rent, 
but with womanly gentleness also, wrapping her 
in dry clothes of her own before she laid her to rest. 

For Arnold de Curboil’s servants had been all 
Greeks, and when they had learned that their 
master had been killed in the night, they had 
bolted and barred the house, and had bound Beatrix 
and her Norman tirewoman hand and foot and 
gagged their mouths with cloths, in order that they 
might carry off the rich plunder, but at first they 
had not meant to kill the women. Only when they 
were just about to slip away, one at a time, so as to 
escape notice, they held a council, and the most of 
them said that it would be better to throw the 
women into the well, lest either of them should help 
the other, and getting loose, escape from the house 
and cause a pursuit. So they threw the Norman 
woman down first, and when they saw that she sank 
the third time, being drowned, they threw Beatrix 
after her. But the well was not so deep as they 
had thought, and was narrow, so that Beatrix had 


VIA CRUCIS 391 


kept her head above the water a long time, her feet | 
just touching the body of her drowned servant. 
And in this way the faithful woman had saved her 
mistress after she was dead. When this was-known, 
they took her from the well and bore her to burial 
without the city, while Leatrix was asleep. 

That night Gilbert and Dunstan lay on their cloaks 
within the half-broken door of the house, which could 
not be bolted, for they were tired, having watched 
by the Sepulchre all the night before that; and little 
Alric kept watch in the courtyard, walking up and 
down lest he should sleep, for the Syrian wine might 
have made him drowsy, and he had the whole bottle 
to himself. But he drank slowly and thoughtfully, 
and when he felt that his head was not clear, he 
let the wine alone, and walked up and down a long 
time talking to himself and warning himself to 
keep sober. This being accomplished, he swallowed 
another draught, wisely sipping it by half mouthfuls, 
and then walked again ; and so all night, and in the 
dawn he was as fresh and rosy and sober as ever, but 
the big leathern bottle lay quite flat and disconsolate 
on the pavement; for he came of the old English 
archers, who were good men at a bowl, and steady on 
their legs. | 

In the morning Gilbert awoke and sat up, on the 
pavement, and as Alric came near he made a sign that 
he should not wake Dunstan, but let him rest. He 
looked at the sleeper’s face, and thought how much 
this servant of his had suffered, being quite half as 
gentle by birth as he himself; and he remembered 
how the man had fought ever bravely, and had shed 


392 VIA CRUCIS 


his blood, and had never taken gifts of money trom 
his master, save for great necessity, and had asked 
for a sword rather than for a tunic wnen he had 
raised the riot to save Beatrix and the Queen in 
Nicea; and Gilbert was ashamed that such a man, 
who was in truth the eldest born of a great house, 
should be a starving servant. So when Dunstan 
opened his eyes and started up at seeing his master 
awake, Gilbert spoke to him. 

“You have fought with me,” he said, “you have 
endured with me, we have fasted together on the 
march, and we have drunk of the same spring in 
battle while the arrows fell about us, and now, God 
willing, we are to be brothers, when I wed the Lady 
Beatrix, and but for you I should be mourning by 
her grave to-day. It is not meet that we should be 
any longer master and man, for you have gentle 
blood in you, of a great house.” 

“Sir Gilbert,” murmured Dunstan, flushing darkly, 
“you are very kind to me, but I will not have gentle- 
hood of a father who was a murderer and a thief.” 

“ You prove yourself gentle by that speech,” an- 
swered Gilbert. “Had he no other blood to give 
you than his own? ‘Thén the Lady Beatrix is also 
the daughter of a thief and a murderer.” 

« And of a iady of great lineage. That is differ- 
ent. Iam no peer of my lady sister. But if so be 
that I may have a name, and be calied gentle, then, 
sir, | pray you, beg of our sovereign in England that 
I may be called by a new name of my own, that my 
ill birth may be forgotten.” 

“ AndsolI will,” said Gilbert, “for it is better thus.” 


VIA CRUCIS 893 


Afterwards he kept his word, and when she had 
her own again, Beatrix gave him a third share of her 
broad lands, to hold in fief to Gilbert Warde, though 
he had no rightful claim; and because he had saved 
her life, he was called Dunstan Le Sauveur, because 
he had saved her and many; and he had favour of 
King Henry and fought bravely, and was made a 
knight, and raised up an honourable race. 

But on that morning in Jerusalem, in the little 
court, Beatrix came out, still weak and weary, and 
sat beside Gilbert in the shade of the wall, with her 
hand between his, and the light in her face. 

“Gilbert,” she said, when she had told him what 
had happened to her until then, “ when I was angry 
and unbelieving in the Queen’s chamber in Antioch, 
why did you turn and leave me, seeing that I was in 
the wrong?” 

“T was angry, too,” he answered simply. 

But womanlike, she answered him again. 

“That was foolish. You should have taken me 
roughly in your arms and kissed me, as you did by 
the river long ago. Then I should have believed 
you, as I do now.” 

“But you would not believe my words, nor the 
Queen’s,” he said, “nor even when she gave herself 
up to the King, to prove herself true, would you 
believe her.” 

“If men only knew!” Beatrix laughed softly her 
little bird laugh that had the music of a spring 
day. 

“Tf men knew — what ?” 

“Tf men knew—” She paused, and blushed, and 


peed 


394 VIA CRUCIS 


laughed again. “If men knew how women love 
sweet words when they are happy, and sharp deeds 
when they are angry! That is what I mean. I 
would have given my blood and the Queen’s king- 
dom for a kiss when you left me standing there.” 

“JT wish I had known!” exclaimed Gilbert, happy 
but half perplexed. 

“ You ought to have known,” answered the girl. 

Her eyebrows were raised a little with the half- 
pathetic look he loved, while her mouth smiled. 

“j shall never understand,” he said, but he began 
to laugh too. 

“J will tell you. In the first place, I shall never 
be angry with you again—never! Do you believe 
me, Gilbert?” 

“Of course I do,” he answered, having nothing 
else to say. 

“Very well. But if I ever should be —” 

“ But you just said that you never would be!” 

“Tf know; but if I should —just once —then 
take me in your arms, and say nothing, but kiss me 
as you did that day by the river.”’ 

“JT understand,” he said. ‘ Are you angry now?” 
But he was laughing. 

*‘ Almost,” she answered, glancing sideways in a 
smile. 

“ Not quite?” 

“Yes, quite!” And her eyes darkened under the 
drooping lids. | 

Then he held her so close to him that she was 
half breathless, and kissed her till it hurt, and she 
turned pale again, and her eyes were closed. 


THE WAY OF THE CROSS 





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VIA CRUCIS 395 


“You see,” she said very faintly, “I believe you 


"99 


now : 


Here ends the story of Gilbert Warde’s crusading ; 
for he had reached the end of his Via Crucis in the 
Holy City, and had at last found peace for his soul, 
and light and rest for his heart, after many troubles 
and temptations, and after much brave fighting for 
the good cause of the Faith against unbelievers. 

After that he fought again with the army at 
Damascus, and saw how the princes betrayed one 
another, when the Emperor Conrad had come again, 
so that the siege of the strong town came to naught, 
and the armies were scattered among the rich gar- 
dens to gather fruit and drink strong wine, while 
their leaders wrangled. Also at Ascalon he drew 
sword again, and again he saw failure hanging over all, 
like an evil shadow, and chilling the courage in men, 
so that there was murmuring, and clamouring for 
the homeward path. There he saw how the great 
armies went to ruin and fell to pieces, because, as 
the holy Bernard had known, there was not the 
faith of other days, and also because there was no 
great leader, as Eleanor had told the abbot himself 
at Vézelay ; and it was a sad sight, and one to sicken 
the souls of good men. 

But though he fought with all his might when 
swords were out, there was no sadness in him for all 
these things, for life and hope were bright before 
him. Little by little, too, he had heard how all the 
poor pilgrims left at Attalia had perished; but he 
knew that if he had led them, Beatrix would have 


396 VIA CRUCIS 


died there in the court of the little house in Jerusa- 
lem, and he held her life more dear than the lives of © 
many, whom his own could hardly have saved. 

Moreover, and last of all, he had learned and 
understood that the cause of God lies not buried 
among stones in any city, not even in the most holy 
city of all; for the place of Christ’s suffering is in 
men’s sinful hearts, and the glory of his resurrec- 
tion is the saving of a soul from death to everlast- 
ing life, in refreshment and light and peace. 


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